Infrared heating and roller-based contact printing technology for the fabrication of micro/nano-structures

This paper presents a new roller-based nano-imprinting method based on the Infrared assisted metal transfer technique. It utilizes a silicon mold which is deposited with a thin metal film for pattern transferring. Another metal film which acts as an adhesion layer is also deposited on the substrate surface. An infrared light source incident from the substrate side heats up the metal films. After imprinting, the patterned metal film defined by sub-micro- and nano-scale features of the mold can be transferred from the mold to the substrate. A glass roller is introduced in this new method. Optically, the glass roller is acting like a cylindrical lens which can focus the infrared light into a line source at the mold/substrate interface. Mechanically, the roller provides a constant line-type contact pressure between the mold and substrate. In this paper, quartz substrates have been successfully patterned and, after appropriated etching processes, quartz molds are obtained.