Near-field photolithography by a fiber probe

Since Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM) was developed in 1992, many researches have been proposed to prove that it could be used in nano-fabrication because near-field optical technology can overcome the optical diffraction limit. By using near-field photolithography, we made a narrow groove (128 nm, FWHM) by an optical fiber probe with Ar+ laser (488 nm). This result shows the near-field lithography's superiority because the linewidth is smaller than one-third wavelength (162.7 nm), and the minimal linewidth of classic optical lithography should be larger than half wavelength (244 nm).