Deformation of a LCD glass-panel by alignment process in nanoimprint lithography

Deformation of a LCD glass-panel during the alignment is analyzed for a UV-nanoimprint lithography process. In UV-nanoimprint processes for manufacturing LCD panels, a glass-panel should be aligned with respect to the position of fiducial marks on imprint mold and the target glass. The alignment process will place the nano-patterns on the mold into the designated position in the glass-panel. Usually, viscoelastic resin is laminated between the mold and glass-panel. The resin is solidified by ultra-violet light and is designed to be nano-patterns. Thus, shear force would be induced on the panel during alignment process. The shear force can cause deformation of glass-panel, which ultimately causes misalignment of nano-patterns. Thus, deformation analysis for the glass-panel in the alignment process is essential to enhance the accuracy and to reduce alignment cost in nano-imprint. In this work, deformation of the glass panel from the viscous force is calculated by using 'ALGOR' package. The mechanism of misalignment of nano-patterns due to the deformation is analyzed. Finally, the effect of misalignment is discussed, and the experimental results are also presented.