Paper NS+NC-ThA5
Fabrication of Large Area Glass Submicron Pattern by Multibeam Interference Lithography and Reactive Ion Etching

Thursday, October 23, 2008, 3:20 pm, Room 311

Large area glass submicron patterns are important because of its advantages and great potentials for the applications of nanoimprint molding, diffraction mask patterning, gratings, diffractive waveguide devices, microfluidic channels, and lab on a chip. In this work, we use multibeam interference lithography using photoresist to fabricate two dimensional (2-D) submicron patterns covering a large glass substrate area and nano pattern transfer to the glass substrate using subsequent reactive ion etching (RIE). Three plane wave laser (532nm) beams are utilized for interference pattern on a SU-8 thin film layer. Reactive ion etching is appropriate for the large area pattern transfer with high aspect ratio pattern with appropriate RIE power and gas control. The glass etching rate and shape with various reactive ion etching conditions are reported for the nanoscopic patterns. This profile shows uniform pattern transfer in the large area substrate with fidelity. The proposed glass submicron patterning approach provides the advantages of both low cost and precise tailoring of submicron geometry, appropriate for mass production.