Application of solid immersion lens-based near-field recording technology to high-speed plasmonic nanolithography

In this paper, we proposed a high-speed and high-throughput plasmonic nanolithography technique that uses a fabricated sharp-ridged nanoaperture on a solid immersion lens (SIL) and a precise active nanogap control algorithm. This plasmonic lithography with high throughput can make an optical spot with a diameter of the order of 10nm and can perform nanopatterning at sub-m/s speed. An optical high-throughput head was designed on a metallic aluminum aperture by optimizing the geometric parameters of a sharp-ridged antenna on the basis of the optical intensity and spot size. Using the evanescent field generated from the SIL, the plasmonic SIL could be maintained below 20nm above a photoresist-coated Si-wafer and could move at a speed of greater than 200 mm/s without friction; the patterning of lines could be performed under this condition. We achieved patterning with a line width (full-width at half-magnitude, FWHM) of 130 nm.