The Future of Nanoimprint
Nanoimprint lithography is a simple pattern transfer process that is neither limited by diffraction nor scattering effects nor secondary electrons, and does not require any sophisticated radiation chemistry. It is also a potentially simple and inexpensive technique. However, a lingering barrier to nanometer-scale patterning is the current reliance on other lithography techniques to generate the template. It is possible that self-assembled structures will provide the ultimate solution for templates of periodic patterns at scales of 10 nm and less. It is also possible to resolve the template generation issue by using a programmable template in a scheme based on double patterning.
As of October 2007, Toshiba is the only company to have validated nanoimprint lithography for 22 nm and beyond. What is more significant is that nanoimprint lithography is the first sub-30 nm lithography to be validated by an industrial user.
Read more about this topic: Nanoimprint Lithography
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