Polymer Periodic Nanostructures on Curved Substrates by UV-Curable Hybrid Soft Nanoimprint Lithography

Abstract

With rapidly developing nonplanar flexible electronics and photonics devices, high-throughput and low-cost fabrication of polymer periodic nanostructures on curved substrates has become a significant research area. Herein, we report fabrication of different polymer periodic nanostructures directly on cylinder substrate by using hybrid soft nanoimprint lithography (NIL) at room environment. The composite stamp was made up of hybrid soft nanoimprint mold that includes a thin rigid features layer and thick elastomeric poly(dimethylsiloxanes) (PDMS) support layer. Ultraviolet (UV)-curable thiol-ene material has good properties, such as low viscosity, high resolution, rapid reaction rate in benign ambient, and is particularly suitable as nanoimprint resist. Periodic nanopillar arrays, nanoscale hole arrays, and nanograting were fabricated on large-area curved substrate based on this new method. The nanostructures had high resolution and were precisely distributed uniformly onto the curved surfaces.