Fabrication of Molds with 25-nm Dot-Pitch Pattern by Focused Ion Beam and Reactive Ion Etching for Nanoimprint Using Metallic Glass

Here we attempted to fabricate molds (dies) of nanodot arrays with a 25-nm pitch and to nanoimprint metallic glass for developing bit-patterned media with an ultrahigh recording density of 1 Tbit/in.2. The mold-fabricating process consisted of mask patterning by focused ion beam assisted chemical vapor deposition (FIB-CVD) and reactive ion etching (RIE). We investigated the feasibility of a Pt-deposited metal etching mask on SiO2 on Si and diamond like carbon (DLC) on Al2O3 substrates, and achieved isolated convex nanodot arrays with a 25-nm pitch and an aspect ratio of 1.8 by RIE with O2 plasma on a DLC/Al2O3 substrate. Subsequently, we nanoimprinted Pt-based metallic glass by using the fabricated molds and successfully replicated fine concave nanohole arrays. The results suggest that the FIB-CVD/RIE process is a promising technique for fabricating ultrafine nanopatterned molds, and metallic glasses are ideal nanoimprintable materials for mass producing nanodevices such as bit-patterned media.