Plasmonic Lithography: Recent Progress

Plasmonic lithography has received extensive attention as both a potential candidate for next generation lithography and as an interesting testbed to test the fundamental resolution limits of optical imaging and patterning. Owing to the utilization of the otherwise lost evanescent near fields containing high frequency information, surface plasmon-based lithographic techniques can break the diffraction limit in conventional photolithography; resolution down to approximately 20 nm using visible light has been experimentally demonstrated, and theoretical studies have analyzed methods that have the potential for creating nanopatterns with sub-10 nm resolution. This paper reviews the research progress and various modalities of plasmonic lithography, addresses current obstacles and problems, and provides an outlook for practical application.