Controlled co-evaporation of silanes for nanoimprint stamps

A new chemical vapour deposition setup for the generation of anti-adhesive coatings on Si stamps used in nanoimprint lithography has been developed. This is suitable for controlled co-evaporation of more than one type of silane by directly injecting a premixed silane into an evacuated deposition reactor through a septum. This process was found to be very flexible and resulted in reproducible coatings. A surface coated with a mixture of mono- and trichlorosilanes shows a higher water contact angle than those of individual coatings, which is attributed to the interaction between the two types of silane molecules. In addition, the influence of process parameters, e.g. water content, temperature and number of imprints, on the coating quality will be discussed.