Mikro- und Nanostrukturierung / Self-assembled structures in thermal nanoimprint

Thermal nanoimprint is an innovative technique to create micro- and nanometer structures with the help of a stamp. This technique offers the benefit of allowing to prepare free standing structures, which is highly beneficial for lithography purposes. To achieve such free-standing structures, the stamp cavities should remain underfilled. This book deals with the behavior of the polymer inside an underfilled stamp cavity. On the one hand the polymer shall replicate the lateral geometries of the stamp, on the other hand hydrodynamic instabilities are always present and may result in structures other than the desired ones, here called self-assembly defects. The formation of these two kinds of structures is discussed in detail, both theoretically and experimentally. The physical understanding of the effects provides efficient means to optimize the experimental conditions towards minimum self-assembly defects, against the background of the imprint system used and its characteristics.