http://www.physorg.com/news6081.html

This looks like a promising technique. I am aware of similar work by U of Texas which is the basis of Molecular Imprints" S-FIL technology.

As far as I know this is the cheapest approach, through and through, and is not limited by diffraction or by charged-particle repulsion.

I did not know until now that PhysOrg had already posted this article earlier this year showing nanoimprint capable of 2 nm resolution! Now I'm really excited about this !

After searching around a bit on the WWW, I found out this much about the Imprio 250 from Molecular Imprints:

< 10 nm 3s overlay
26 mm X 32 mm field
as low as 2s/die
1000W Hg lamp
costs under 10 million USD

Seems like a no-brainer to me, if I wanted to start making 20 nm structures with minimal budget in a developing or competing country today, I would have to use this kind of tool.

I'd probably trim down larger features to get 20 nm. Such techniques are already in use in semiconductor manufacturing today.

For tight squeeze spaces, I'd make the pattern in more than one sweep, sticking features in between previously patterned features. This technique has been published by several authors (IBM, U New Mexico) recently.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is important to get this part of the task of making smaller nanostructures out of the way, because the nanostructures themselves will or already have plenty of issues coming with them.

At least we may soon be able to position nanotubes and nanowires where we want them.

guiding_light

looks like Michael Thomas wrote about UV Ferroelectric Molecular Xerographic Lithography nanoimprint back in 2000. Again its intresting to see Michael's predictions for the future come true.

http://www.colossalstorage.net/colossal12.htm#markets

Ferroelectrics can be pretty amazing stuff.

Imprinting also has many forms. The concept goes way back to the Chinese seal. These are the red markings you typically see as artist signature on Chinese paintings.

Just read this update on Obducat. I think the key challenges here would be overlay and defects induced by embossing, but they should already know that by now.

This paper came to my attention.

There's never a simple, nice, easy solution. The devil is always in the details