Thermal nanoimprint lithography of polymer films on non-adhesive substrates by using mussel-inspired adhesive polymer layers

In this paper, we show the first demonstration of a substrate-independent thermal nanoimprint lithography (T-NIL) process by using a mussel-inspired amphiphilic polymer as an adhesive layer. Since the thin adhesive layer comprised of the mussel-inspired amphiphilic polymer strongly bound substrates and polymer layers, surface patterns successfully transferred onto polymer layers by T-NIL process without any exfoliation even at near the glass transition temperature of the polymer. By using this biomimetic T-NIL process, surface patterns successfully transferred even onto a poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) substrate, which is one of the most non-adhesive materials.