Asymmetric fluid-structure dynamics in nanoscale imprint lithography

Chapter 1: Background and MotivationSemiconductor materials such as silicon, GaAs, and SiGe are thefundamental building blocks for microelectronic chips, which make possible theInternet and electronic commerce, telecommunications, computers, consumerelectronics, industrial automation and control systems, and analytical and defensesystems. A critical unit process associated with the manufacture ofsemiconductor chips is patterning using photolithography. This researchaddresses a low-cost, high-throughput alternative to photolithography in thesub-100 nm regime.1.1 INTRODUCTIONThe recent decades have experienced an inundation of technologicalinnovations in the fields of computing and microelectronics. This progress hasbeen brought about by the ability to replicate increasingly higher resolutioncircuit patterns on semiconductor wafers. Smaller patterns allow semiconductormanufacturers to produce more densely packed circuits that operate at fasterspeeds, and to place more circuits onto a single wafer, thus decreasingmanufacturing costs. The industry standard process for pattern generation hashistorically been optical microlithography (or simply optical lithography).Advances in optical lithography have made it possible to allow high-throughputmanufacture of circuits with feature sizes as small as 130 nm. However, it isbelieved that the current progression in optical methods is approaching limits,which will lead to prohibitive costs in capital equipment for marginalimprovements in technology for microelectronics manufacturers.1