Recent Progress in Ultraviolet Nanoimprint Lithography and Its Applications

Micro- and nanostructures have important applications in microsystems. As a low cost, high-resolution, and high-throughput approach, ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) can manufacture these structures easily and straightforwardly. Therefore, UV-NIL has attracted wide interest from researchers in different fields worldwide. In this paper, we give a comprehensive review of the recent developments in various aspects of UV-NIL, including stamp, resist, process, and equipment. Adhesion between stamp and resist and antisticking treatment are discussed. UV-NIL and its variants have been employed in many areas, with emphasis on optics and electronics. Many optics applications, such as polarizers, waveguides, splitters, plasmonics, metamaterials, microlens arrays, solar cells, antireflection surfaces, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and surfaceenhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) utilize UV-NIL to fabricate its key parts or substrates. Electronics applications include organic thin-film transistors, organic field-effect transistors, MOSFETs, and bioelectronics. The utilization of UV-NIL in magnetics, data storage, nanowires, and scanning probe-microscopy tips are also reviewed.