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In optics, the surface determines the function. In classic optics you have material parameters, like refractive index, but the material shape / curvature (and roughness) determines the function. The advancement of nano-technology led to new methods to drastically lower fabrication costs per cm2 (compared to semicon approaches) and new insights in how electro-magnetic waves can be influenced at the fundamental level. That’s how nano-photonics was born. Nano-photonics allows us to control light with much more precision and functions than possible using conventional optics and enables new technologies such as diffractive waveguides and meta-lenses. The demands that these applications place on the patterns are not so easily met. The size and shape needs to be reproducible to an absolute size with variations less than 1 -2nm. Furthermore, the materials used need to have a high refractive index, preferably above n=2.0. The large area devices drive towards 300mm wafer processing to increase output and lower costs. To further decrease costs, directly patterning functional optical materials is needed to save 2 vacuum deposition steps and 3 vacuum dry-etch steps, both using expensive equipment. The industry is converging on nanoimprint lithography as a production technology that can address all these challenges. SCIL nanoimprint solutions is building on 20+ years material-, process- and tool building experience to provide customer specific high volume production solutions. Our approach has always been to start from the process and functional materials which allows us to optimize for stamp lifetime (500+), directly patterning fully inorganic functional materials (refractive index up to n=2.1), binary, blazed or slanted patterns with accuracy (less than 1nm absolute size variation). Our latest FabSCIL cluster tool offers processing of 200 and 300mm wafers, from 300 micron up to 2.5mm thickness, overlay lower than 1 micron even with alignment of patterns from the top to the bottom of the wafer. In the contribution we’ll elaborate on the material systems, reproducibility and production solutions.
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