Removal of UV cured resin using hybrid cleaning method

Abstract

Ultraviolet based nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) technology is widely used in nanosized fine pattern transfer. NIL, which uses low pressure and low temperature, makes it possible to fabricate 3-dimensional pattern [. So, UV-NIL is one of the techniques with great potential as a new manufacturing process. But, UV-NIL process uses an expensive quartz substrate for transmission of UV light. Therefore, quartz substrate needs to be recycled to reduce the manufacturing cost. Usually, UV-NIL uses UV curable resins, whose chemical bonding and structure could be altered during UV light exposure which would result in crosslinking between the polymers. This UV cured resin with cross-linked structure is very hard to remove from the quartz substrate [. Conventionally, UV cured resin is removed by treating with sulfuric acid-hydrogen peroxide mixture (SPM) followed by ammonium hydroxide-hydrogen peroxide mixture (APM). One of the major drawbacks in using SPM-based treatment is the chemical haze formation and particle contamination on the quartz substrate [. Thus, an alternative cleaning composition will be of interest.