We present the development of a reliable 4 in. lift-off process based oil trilayer nanoiniprint lithography (NIL). At first, an inductively coupled plasma etching step of the imprinted resist is used to remove the residual resist thickness after NIL for different pattern geometry and density. while maintaining the critical dimensions of the studied patterns. 13 combining this etching step to a trilayer (NEB22/Ti/PMMA) nanoimprint process, reproductible 4 in. wafer lift-off of 250 nm wide metallic patterns was obtained. Finally, local probe indentation measurements are investigated to correlate the mechanical properties of different imprinted polymers to the achievable nanogap replication. (c) 2005 American Vacuum Society.