A lift-off of pattern structures on the heat-mode resists

Laser heat-mode lithography is very useful for the fabrication of micro/nanostructure-based optical elements. In laser heat-mode lithography, the pattern structures need to be transferred to the substrates by wet-etching or dry-etching method. In this work, a lift-off method for the pattern transfer in laser heat-mode lithography was proposed and studied. A desirable undercut profile was obtained by manipulating the thermal field profile of laser heat-mode exposure, and a lift-off of Cr layer with a thickness of 80 nm on a quartz glass substrate was achieved. The results indicated that laser heat-mode lithography with lift-off process is an effective method to transfer the pattern structures to Cr layer and generate a Cr-based hard mask, which is useful for the fabrication of micro/nanostructure-based optical elements.