CPC G03F 7/0002 (2013.01) [B22D 21/005 (2013.01); B82Y 30/00 (2013.01); B82Y 40/00 (2013.01)] | 15 Claims |
1. A nanoimprint lithography (NIL) process, comprising the successive steps of:
a) preparing a solution of sol-gel metal or metalloid oxide precursor(s),
o) performing a calibration step to determine solvent relative pressure that should be applied during replication step d,
b) applying said solution onto a substrate to form a film,
c) equilibrating the film with the atmosphere under adjusted solvent vapor pressure, to obtain a gel film,
d) applying a soft mould onto said gel film to provide an assembly such that said gel film fills up the cavities of the mould, and maintaining said assembly under solvent vapor,
e) thermally treating said assembly so as to rigidify the gel film thus obtained,
f) removing the mould to obtain a substrate coated with a patterned gel, and
g) curing said patterned gel so as to obtain a patterned metal or metalloid oxide material on said substrate,
wherein the solvent uptake of the film is adjusted to 10 to 50% volume by varying the vapor pressure in a volatile solvent at the vicinity of the film and gel film during steps c) and d) and wherein the gel film does not comprise organic polymers.
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