Nano-imprint lithography processing of inorganic-based materials

• Published in: Chemistry of materials
• Main Authors: Modaresialam, Mehrnaz, Chehadi, Zeinab, Bottein, Thomas, Abbarchi, Marco
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 13-08-2021
• Subjects: Chemical Sciences; Material chemistry
• ISSN: 0897-4756; 1520-5002
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c00693

We review past and recent progress in Nano-Imprint Lithography (NIL) methods to (nano-) structure inorganic materials from sol-gel liquid formulations and colloidal suspensions onto a surface. This technique, first inspired by embossing techniques, was developed for soft polymer processing, as final or intermediate materials, but is today fully adapted to hard inorganic materials with high dielectric constant, such as metal oxides, with countless chemical compositions provided by the sol-gel chemistry. Consequently, NIL has become a versatile, high throughput, and highly precise microfabrication method that is mature for lab developments and scaling up. We first describe the state-of-the-art in nanofabrication methods and the plethora of approaches developed in the last decades to imprint metal oxides from inorganic solutions. These are discussed and compared in terms of performances, issues, and ease of implementation. The final part is devoted to relevant applications in domains of interest.