Intellectual Property Law

US Patent 7520742 - Nanoimprint mold-releasing agent

Nanoimprint lithography provides a technique to mechanically pattern structures on the nanometer scale using surface contours of a mold structure. However, one difficulty is in the release of the mold from the material being patterned without deforming the structures being formed. This patent from Hitachi teaches a mold structure including a release agent to solve this problem. Claim 1 reads:

1. A nanoprinting mold for forming a fine structure on a resin substrate or on a resin film on a substrate using a press machine, wherein said mold has a concave-convex pattern including a plurality of concave portions and convex portions, and a mold-releasing agent is provided only on top surfaces of said convex portions of said mold, and wherein said mold-releasing agent is a solid and has a coefficient of friction smaller than that of said concave portions.

Full post as published by TinytechIP on April 21, 2009 (boomark / email).