(ii) Umted States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 8,114,331 B2 Houle et al. 45 Date of Patent: Feb. 14 2012 9 (54) AMORPHOUS OXIDE RELEASE LAYERS 2004/0124566 A1 7/2004 Sreenivasan et al. FOR IMPRINT LITHOGRAPHY’ AND 2882/8531831 iii I/3882‘ ?*‘“i?§‘ 1% I'|.1S e e 3. . METHOD OF USE 2005/0146079 A1* 7/2005 Chou .......................... .. 264/319 2006/0144274 A1 7/2006 Kolesnychenko et al. (75) Inventorsl Frances A H0l1le,FremOI1I, CA (US); 2006/0144275 A1 7/2006 Kolesnychenko et al. Simone Raoux, Santa Clara, CA (US) 2006/0222968 A1 10/2006 Talin et al. 2006/0255505 A1 11/2006 Sandhu et al. (73) Assignee: International Business Machines 2006/0264048 A1 11/2006 Cabra12_-lr' et a1~ Corporation Armonk NY (US) 2007/0048625 A1 3/2007 Nordqu1steta1. ’ ’ 2010/0225227 A1* 9/2010 Tchakarov et al. ......... .. 313/504 ( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS patent is extended or adjusted under 35 WO 96/34767 A1 11/1996 U.S.C. 154(b) by 535 days. WO WO2007029482 Al * 3/2007 WO WO 2007030528 A2 3/2007 (21) Appl. No.: 11/968,603 OTHER PUBLICATIONS (22) Filed: J 311- 25 2008 C.A. Mills et al.; Production of Structures for Microfluidics Using Pl I 'tT hn' ;2005;M' lt 'E' '; Prior Publication Data ICIOG ec IOIIIC ng1neer1ng US 2009/0169663 A1 ]u1_ 23 2009 Komuro et al, “Improvement of Imprinted Pattern Uniformity Using Sapphire Mold”, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., Jun. 2002, pp. 4182-4185, Part (51) Int Cl_ 1, No. 6B, The Japan Society ofApplied Physics, Japan. B28B 11/08 (2006.01) (Continued) (52) U.S. Cl. ...... .. 264/293; 264/496; 264/319; 264/338; ( ) 977/887 Primary Examiner * Yogendra Gupta 58 Field of Classification Search ................ .. 264 293, Assistant Examiner i Ninh Le 264/496 319 338' 977/887 . . ’ ’ ’ 74 A A F -D lE. J hn See application file for complete search history. ( ) nomey’ gem’ Or Wm ame 0 Son (56) References Cited (57) h ABSTRACT d 1 1 Amorp ous inorganic oxi es are use as re ease ayers on U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS templates for nanoimprint lithography. Such a layer facili6,387,787 B1 5/2002 Mancini et 31‘ tates the releaseof a template from a cured, hardened com6,533,96g B1 3/2003 Feist et a1, posltlon lnto Which the template has transferred a pattern, by 6,852,454 B2 2/2005 Mancini et al. reducing the adhesion energy betWeen the release layer and J; séetetnivtilzlan et a1~ the cured, hardened composition. The release layer may i i a s e . . _ _ 2002/0135099 Al 9/2002 Robinson et al. :;°1iHd‘g1neC°Or eouruslegléconductor elements Such 2002/0167117 A1 11/2002 Chou ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ’ ' 2004/0033424 A1 2/2004 Talin et al. 2004/0108808 A1* 6/2004 Kumagai et al. ............ .. 313/505 23 Claims, 5 Drawing Sheets