Bubble defect control in low-cost roll-to-roll ultraviolet imprint lithography

Abstract

To obtain high quality patterns in ultraviolet roll-to-roll (R2R) imprinting lithography in the atmospheric environment with industrial resins, air bubble defects and the resulting distortion should be avoided in the process. In this reported work, the formation mechanism of the bubble defects is studied systematically with experiments and numerical analysis. The results show that the unsuitable resin coating method mainly contributes to the bubble defects in resin. On the basis of the above conclusions, an improved coating method is proposed in order to reduce the bubbles in the R2R process. This improvement can be applied to the replication of high quality patterns in R2R imprinting with low-cost industrial resins. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014.