Nanochannels for DNA stretching fabricated by standard cleanroom processing and nanoimprint lithography

An inexpensive method compared to e-beam lithography for the fabrication of nm-sized structures is presented. 30 nm wide knife-edge stamps are used to pattern a polymer film on a silicon substrate by nanoimprint lithography (NIL) [I]. The patterned polymer film with a feature size down to 30 nm can subsequently be used either as a metal lift-off mask or, as a direct etching mask to fabricate nm-sized grooves in the silicon substrate. This way we demonstrate the fabrication of sub-1 00 nm nanochannels for DNA analysis on lab-on-a-chip micro systems [2, 31.