Nanopositioning and nonlinearity compensation for step imprint lithography tool

In this paper, the motion mode and nanopositioning accuracy in the step imprinting lithography process are presented, and the positioning errors different from the traditional errors, such as the gap error existing in the hinges of the stage structure and the random error produced during the process of the stage position adjustment, are analyzed. To avoid and eliminate these nonlinearity errors, radial basis function-proportional integral derivative and position control algorithms are introduced into the macro- and microdriving processes, respectively. The innovation of this driving method is that the motion locus is monotone, nonoscillatory, and a multistep approaching target, which eliminates the root of the random error by single direction driving mode and avoids the backlash error through preloading function. Driving experiments of different motion ranges prove that this nonlinearity compensation is very effective and the positioning accuracy during the step imprinting process can be improved up to 10-nm.