Parallel optical nanolithography using nanoscale bowtie apertures

Sreemanth M. V Uppuluri, Purdue University

Abstract

Over the past two decades various branches of science and engineering have developed techniques for producing nanoscopic light sources for different applications such as imaging, detection and fabrication. These areas include near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), surface-enhanced Raman scattering and detection (SERS), plasmonics and so on. In particular nanolithography techniques have been developed to produce feature sizes in the sub-100 nm length scales. These processes include variations of standard photolithography process to achieve high resolution, optical fiber-based near-field lithography, surface plasmon assisted nanolithography, interference optical lithography and so on. This work presents a study of the viability of using nanoscale bowtie apertures for nanolithography. Bowtie apertures exhibit a unique property of supporting a propagating TE10 mode at wavelengths of light in the visible and near-UV regimes. The energy of this mode is concentrated in the gap region of the aperture and thus these apertures have the potential to produce high intensity nanoscale light spots that can be used for nano-patterning applications. We demonstrate this capability of nanoscale bowtie apertures by patterning photoresist to obtain resolution less than 100 nm. Initially we present the results from static lithography experiments and show that the ridge apertures of different shapes – C, H and bowtie produce holes in the photoresist of dimensions around 50-60 nm. Subsequently we address the issues involved in using these apertures for nano directwriting. We show that chromium thin-films offer a viable solution to produce high quality metal films of surface roughness less than 1 nm over an area of 25 μm2. This is indeed important to achieve intimate contact between the apertures and the photoresist surface. We also explain ways to decrease friction between the mask and photoresist surfaces during nano direct-writing. In addition, to decrease the contact force needed to bring an array of bowtie apertures into intimate contact with the photoresist surface we present an optical interference based alignment system that aligns the mask and photoresist surfaces to within 0.1 mrad of parallelism. In this work we show that bowtie apertures can be used to produce patterns in the photoresist of dimensions in the order of 85-90 nm. We also demonstrate parallel optical nanolithography using an array of bowtie apertures that opens up the possibility of using arrays of bowtie apertures to produce a large number of nanoscale light spots for parallel nano-manufacturing.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Xu, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Mechanical engineering|Nanoscience|Nanotechnology

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