Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Molecular Imprints, Inc.

Canon Nanotechnologies, Inc.

Zhengmao Ye

Niyaz Khusnatdinov

Edward Brian Fletcher

Byung-Jin Choi

Yoshikazu Miyajima

Kang Luo

Anshuman Cherala

Dwayne L LaBrake

Xiaoming Lu

Nobuto Kawahara

Frank Y Xu

Toshiki Ito

Mario Johannes Meissl

Weijun Liu

Timothy Brian Stachowiak

Steven C Shackleton

Douglas J Resnick

Kosta S Selinidis

Craig William Cone

Alireza Aghili

Wei Zhang

Gaddi S Haase

A shaping system comprises a dispensing station configured to dispense formable material on a substrate, a shaping station configured to contact the dispensed formable material on the substrate with a plate, a positioning system configured to move the substrate having the dispensed formable material from the dispensing system to the shaping station, and a cover having one or more walls. While the substrate having the dispensed formable material is moved by the positioning system from the dispensing station to the shaping station, the cover is positioned to enclose the substrate and the dispensed formable material such that a ratio of a diameter of the substrate to a distance between the cover and the substrate to 80:1 to 30:1.

Shaping system including an evaporation cover, shaping process, and method of manufacturing an article

An apparatus and method configured to eject an electrically charged liquid. The apparatus and method include a liquid-ejecting apparatus including a reservoir for storing a liquid, an electrically conductive faceplate for ejecting the liquid, a plurality of channels connecting the reservoir to the electrically conductive faceplate, and a voltage source to change and maintain an electric potential difference between the liquid and the electrically conductive faceplate during ejection from the electrically conductive faceplate.

Liquid charging apparatus, liquid charging method, and manufacturing method

In an embodiment, an imprint apparatus can include a substrate holder having a chucking region and a recessed support section; and a template holder, wherein the chucking region has more area as compared to a template region. In another embodiment, an imprint apparatus can include gas zones; and a gas controller that can be configured to adjust pressures within the gas zones to induce a convex curvature of a partial field of a workpiece used with the imprint apparatus. A method can include providing a workpiece within an imprint apparatus, wherein the workpiece includes a substrate and a formable material; and initially contacting a template with the formable material at a location spaced apart from the periphery of a partial field. In a particular embodiment, the method can further include modulating the substrate to form a convex shape contacting the template with the formable material.

Imprint apparatus and method of imprinting a partial field

An imprinting system and method. An illumination system for imprinting, during a first period of time, that illuminates a first portion of boundary region that surrounds a pattern region with a thickening dosage of light that is within a first dose range, such that the fluid in the first portion of the boundary region does not solidify but does increase a viscosity of the fluid. The illumination system, during a second period of time, illuminates the pattern region with a curing dosage of light that is within a second dose range higher than the first dose range. Prior to illumination, the imprinting includes dispensing droplets and holding a template with a template chuck such that the template contact the droplets and the droplets merge and form a fluid front that spreads through the pattern region and towards the boundary region.

Imprint system and imprinting process with spatially non-uniform illumination

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for an imprint lithography method of edge field patterning, the method including providing a template having a mold, the mold having a patterning surface comprising patterned features; providing a substrate having an edge step layer positioned thereon the edge step layer including a sloped profile; depositing a polymerizable material on the edge step layer of the substrate; contacting the polymerizable material at one or more of a plurality of edge fields located at a perimeter of the substrate with the mold of the template; and based on the contacting, forming a pattern based on the patterned features at the one or more edge fields to provide an edge field pattern, wherein contact between the template and the substrate proximate to the plurality of edge fields is prevented based on the edge step layer of the substrate.

Edge field imprint lithography

A method can be used to generate a fluid droplet pattern for an imprint lithography process using a fluid dispense system having fluid dispense ports. The method can include determining a first fluid droplet pattern for the formable material dispensed at a preset minimum pitch or an integer multiple thereof; determining a second fluid droplet pattern based on the first fluid droplet pattern, wherein the second fluid droplet pattern is a non-integer multiple of the preset minimum pitch; determining an adjusted speed of the substrate and the fluid dispense ports relative to each other to generate the second fluid droplet pattern; moving the substrate and the fluid dispense ports relative to each other at the adjusted speed; and dispensing the formable material through the fluid dispense ports at the preset frequency to form the second fluid droplet pattern on the substrate.

Fluid droplet methodology and apparatus for imprint lithography

Provided is an imprint apparatus for contacting a resin applied to a substrate with a mold to perform patterning on the substrate. The imprint apparatus includes a substrate holding unit for holding the substrate, wherein the substrate holding unit comprises a plurality of holding areas arranged in a predetermined direction, the plurality of holding areas has different width dimension in the direction respectively based on positions in the direction, a surface ratio between two holding areas of the plurality of holding areas with different width dimension respectively is within a range of 0.8 to 1.2.

Imprint apparatus and article manufacturing method

An imprint apparatus includes a substrate holder including a plurality of chucking regions for chucking a substrate, and a controller that controls chucking forces of the chucking regions. The chucking regions include a first chucking region for chucking a periphery of a first substrate having a first diameter, a second chucking region for chucking a periphery of a second substrate having a second diameter larger than the first diameter, a third chucking region group divided into a plurality of regions inside the first chucking region, and a fourth chucking region group divided into a plurality of regions between the first chucking region and the second chucking region. The controller controls the chucking forces of each of the chucking regions.

Imprint apparatus, and method of manufacturing article

Imprint lithography templates having leading and trailing edge borders are provided that achieve zero-gap imprinting between adjacent fields with full-feature height features provided in the pattern exclusion zones (PEZ) located between such fields. The leading edge borders include dummy features, e.g., elongated features directionally oriented parallel to the mesa edge, while the trailing edge border includes a recess extending to the mesa edges. When used in a step-and-repeat process, the trailing edge border overlaps edge portions of an adjacent imprinted field that were previously patterned by the leading edge border of the template, producing full-feature height features in the pattern exclusion zones between such fields, and avoiding gaps or open areas between such fields that otherwise lead to non-uniformity of downstream processes such as etch processes and CMP.

Imprint lithography template and method for zero-gap imprinting

A nanoimprint lithography method to remove uncured pretreatment composition from an imprinted nanoimprint lithography substrate. The method includes disposing a pretreatment composition on a nanoimprint lithography substrate to form a pretreatment coating and disposing discrete portions of imprint resist on the pretreatment coating, each discrete portion of the imprint resist covering a target area of the nanoimprint lithography substrate. A composite polymerizable coating is formed on the nanoimprint lithography substrate as each discrete portion of the imprint resist spreads beyond its target area, and the composite polymerizable coating is contacted with a nanoimprint lithography template. The composite polymerizable coating is polymerized to yield a composite polymeric layer and an uncured portion of the pretreatment coating on the nanoimprint lithography substrate, and the uncured portion of the pretreatment coating is removed from the nanoimprint lithography substrate.

Removing substrate pretreatment compositions in nanoimprint lithography

A substrate useful for imprint lithography having a location thereon defining an imprint field, the imprint field further defined by an interior region, a perimeter region surrounding the interior region, and a border, with the perimeter region further including fluid control features. A polymerizable material deposited on the substrate at the imprint field location is allowed to spread on the substrate, with the fluid control relief features redirecting the spreading of the polymerizable material so as to minimize spreading of the polymerizable material beyond the imprint field border as further imprint lithography techniques are then performed.

Methods for controlling spread of imprint material

Methods of increasing etch selectivity in imprint lithography are described which employ material deposition techniques that impart a unique morphology to the multi-layer material stacks, thereby enhancing etch process window and improving etch selectivity. For example, etch selectivity of 50:1 or more between patterned resist layer and deposited metals, metalloids, or non-organic oxides can be achieved, which greatly preserves the pattern feature height prior to the etch process that transfers the pattern into the substrate, allowing for sub-20 nm pattern transfer at high fidelity.

Methods for uniform imprint pattern transfer of sub-20 nm features

Systems and methods for adhering a substrate to a patterned layer are described. Included are in situ cleaning and conditioning of the substrate, and the application of an adhesion layer between the substrate and the patterned layer, as well as forming an intermediate layer between adhesion materials and the substrate.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Zhengmao Ye