Beibei Zeng et al 2009 J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Opt. 11 125003 doi:10.1088/1464-4258/11/12/125003
Beibei Zeng, Li Pan, Ling Liu, Liang Fang, Changtao Wang and Xiangang Luo
Show affiliationsNear field lithography (NFL) provides an effective way for obtaining lithography features' sizes far beyond the diffraction limit. However, optical transmission through isolated subwavelength apertures is very low in the lithography process. It also makes it difficult to obtain a uniform lithography pattern where isolated and arrayed slit structures coexist because of different optical transmission through these two kinds of structures. It is proposed in this paper that using appropriately designed groove structures around subwavelength metallic slits could solve this problem. Numerical calculations performed by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method demonstrate that about ten times transmission enhancement could be obtained. This occurs as a surface plasmon is resonantly excited and light is concentrated into nanometer scale apertures, resulting in not only greatly enhanced NFL efficiency but also uniform distribution of light intensity for isolated and arrayed slit patterns. Also discussed is the enhancement dependence on the structural parameters of NFL masks.
42.82.Cr Fabrication techniques; lithography, pattern transfer
Issue 12 (December 2009)
Received 22 June 2009, accepted for publication 20 August 2009
Published 21 September 2009
Beibei Zeng et al 2009 J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Opt. 11 125003
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