Removal of highly crosslinked resists and hybrid polymers for single micro parts fabrication and nanoimprint stamp rework

Thick photoresists, e.g. up to 1 mm layer thickness, are widely used for the manufacture of high aspect ratio microstructures, e.g. as mould for the fabrication of metallic micro parts. Such resists or materials exhibit high mechanical and chemical stability to non-deformably withstand a pattern transfer process, e.g. by electroplating. After the pattern transfer a solvent based removal is difficult or not possible in many cases. A selective mould removal – without the damage of electroplated metal structures – is required for the fabrication of single micro parts. As second application example UV curable and strongly crosslinkable inorganic-organic hybrid polymers such as OrmoComp ® and OrmoStamp ® are used in UV moulding. The cleaning and rework of these moulds or also of stamps for nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a challenging task with increasing importance. The life time of an expensive master mould or stamp as well as of the replicated working stamps is important, and therefore the ability to rework such stamps without any defect or decreased resolution. Hence, we demonstrate the application of a plasma-assisted removal using the STP 2020 etching tool from MUEGGE [1] for remote dry etching of strongly crosslinked materials, i.e. the development of processes for the isotropical etching of highly crosslinked photoresists and hybrid polymer materials will be presented. In combination with this specific etching tool this technique shows a high potential to make plasma-assisted removal ready for industrial production.