Ultralarge-Area Stitchless Scanning Probe Lithography and In Situ Characterization System Using a Compliant Nanomanipulator

Scanning probe lithography (SPL) is a versatile nanofabrication method that employs a scanning probe microscope (SPM) to generate patterns and nanoscale structures on surfaces. Typically, an atomic force microscope (AFM) is the preferred type of SPM for nanolithography and in situ characterization based on the probe–sample interaction. However, the maximum area of the existing SPL is mainly limited by scanner stroke of the AFM and usually less than
$100\times 100$
μm
$^{2}$
. Ultralarge-area nanofabrication can be achieved by using a “step and scan” manner but leading to stitching errors and low throughput. This article proposes a novel ultralarge-area stitchless SPL and high-throughput in situ characterization system utilizing a leaf spring-based nanomanipulator, which offers a maximum scanning area of
$2\times 2$
mm
$^{2}$
. Further, we propose a novel optimized passband loss filter for the repetitive control of the nanomanipulator to realize high-bandwidth and high-precision trajectory tracking. Experimental results indicate that the proposed control method achieves satisfactory tracking performance for a triangular wave with an amplitude of 500 μm. Compared with the existing SPL systems, we achieve stitchless nanolithography at a speed of
$\sim $
2 mm/s and high-throughput in situ characterization in the range of
$500\times 500$
μm
$^{2}$
. This system opens up significant avenues for the research and application of ultralarge-area nanofabrication and in situ characterization.