Glass nanoimprint using amorphous Ni-P mold etched by focused-ion beam

The authors succeeded in glass-nanoimprint lithography of micropatterns and nanopatterns using an amorphous Ni-P alloy mold. Glasslike carbon has been used as a mold material to mold not only Pyrex glass but also quartz, because it is still stable at a temperature of 1650 deg. C. However, it is difficult to process glasslike carbon substrates into arbitrary shapes by machining. They thought that amorphous Ni-P alloy could be used as a mold material for industrial glass molding. If Ni is electroless plated when mixed with suitable amount of P on a Si wafer, the Ni-P alloy layer becomes amorphous. An appropriate ratio of Ni and P was determined by the results of x-ray-diffraction measurements. The optimized composition ratio of Ni-P was Ni:P=92:8 wt %. Moreover, line and space patterns and dot arrays with linewidths of as little as 500 nm were etched on the mold using focused-ion beam (FIB) and the processing accuracy for the amorphous Ni-P layer was compared with that for the pure Ni layer. The result was that patterns of 500 nm width were etched to a depth of 2 μm on an amorphous Ni-P alloy mold and the processed surfaces were smooth. In contrast, in the case of the pure Ni layer, the processing line was notched and the sidewalls were very rough. The crystal grain seems to hinder the processing of the nanopattern. After FIB etching, the amorphous Ni-P alloy was thermally treated at 400 deg. C to improve the hardness. Finally, line and space patterns and dot arrays on the amorphous Ni-P alloy mold were nanoimprinted on Pyrex glass using a glass-nanoimprint system (ASHE0201) that National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology developed