Super-resolution photolithography using dielectric photonic crystal.

Abstract

Although plasmonic photolithography can break through the diffraction limit and produce super-resolution patterns, the intrinsic high loss from metal severely obstructs its application in practice. Here we proposed a novel photolithography method based on a dielectric photonic crystal (PC) structure, where the nanofilms are analyzed systematically. It is shown that the PC can efficiently transmit the desired high-k waves, which is advantageous in generating deep subwavelength patterns and realizing super-resolution lithography. Typically, a PC composed of stacked nine films of a multilayer is demonstrated. The nanopatterns with a period of 60 nm are formed in the photoresist layer. Furthermore, this PC-based lithography system is tolerant to the surface roughness in a multilayer. The analyses indicate that this dielectric PC-based design is applicable for super-resolution lithography to produce periodic patterns with strong field intensity, high aspect ratios, and great uniformity.