Prediction of surface and adhesion energies of nanoimprint lithography materials and anti-sticking layers by molecular dynamics simulation

Abstract

Moleculardynamics(MD)simulationsareperformedtocalculatethesurfaceandadhesionenergies ofnanoimprintlithographymaterials.TheproposedsimulationmodelsincludeanamorphousSiO2,an amorphouspoly(methylmethacrylate)filmandself-assembledmonolayersasanti-stickinglayers.Forthe calculationofthesurfaceandadhesionenergies,anobleMDmethodissuggestedtotakeintoaccount thetemperatureeffect,calculatingthepotentialenergydifferencebetweenthecontactingandseparate surfaces.Theresultsofsimulationsarecomparedwiththeresultsofexperimentsobtainedfromliquid contactanglemeasurementsandpreviousreferences.Therelativeerrorbetweensimulationsand experimentsisabout10%forpoly(methylmethacrylate)andself-assembledmonolayers,andabout20% foramorphousSiO2,respectively.ItisconcludedthatthesuggestedMDsimulationmodelhasgivena satisfactorypredictionofsurfaceandadhesionenergiesandcouldprovidemoreaccurateresultswith thehelpofimprovedforcefields.