Subwavelength nanolithography using surface plasmons

We have investigated the novel plasmonic nanolithography by exposing a photoresist layer through a plasmonic mask, which is an opaque metal film with subwavelength hole arrays in it. The hole arrays of various diameters are fabricated by using focused ion beam (FIB). Through the lithography, the hole array patterns are transferred to negative photoresists. As a result, high contrast dot arrays with the smallest diameter of 120 nm, equivalent to /spl sim//spl lambda//3, are observed by atomic force microscope (AFM).