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Published Online April 9, 2009
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1167704

Reports

Submitted on October 27, 2008
Accepted on February 24, 2009

Confining Light to Deep Subwavelength Dimensions to Enable Optical Nanopatterning

Trisha L. Andrew 1, Hsin-Yu Tsai 2, Rajesh Menon 3*

1 Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2 Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.; Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3 Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.; LumArray Inc., Somerville, MA 02143, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Rajesh Menon , E-mail: rmenon{at}mit.edu

In the past, the formation in the far-field of microscale patterns using light has been diffractively limited in resolution to roughly half the wavelength of the radiation used. Here, we demonstrate lines of average width as narrow as 36 nanometers (nm), about one-tenth the illuminating wavelength, {lambda}1 = 325 nm by applying a film of thermally stable photochromic molecules above the photoresist. Simultaneous irradiation of a second wavelength, {lambda}2 = 633 nm, renders the film opaque to the writing beam except at nodal sites, which let through a spatially constrained segment of incident {lambda}1 light, allowing subdiffractional patterning. The same experiment also demonstrates patterning of periodic lines, whose widths are about one-tenth their period, far smaller than what has been thought lithographically possible.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Two Beams Squeeze Feature Sizes in Optical Lithography.
J. W. Perry (2009)
Science 324, 892-893
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)