Surface plasmon resonant interference nanolithography technique

We demonstrate a promising nanofabrication method, used to fabricate fine patterns beyond the diffraction limit, by employing surface plasmon polariton (SPP) resonance. Sub-100 nm lines were patterned photolithographically using surface plasmon polaritonic interference in the optical near field excited by a wavelength of 436 nm. The unperforated metallic mask approach which has corrugated surfaces on both sides is proposed for arbitrary patterning. The corrugated surface of the metallic mask on the illuminated side collects light through SPP coupling, and SPP on the exit side of metallic mask redistributes the light into nanoscale spatial distribution, which can be used to fabricate nanostructures. Preliminary numerical simulations support the experimental results. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.