Effect of plasmonic lens distribution on flight characteristics in rotational near-field photolithography

Abstract

Rotational near-field photolithography exposes photoresists by exciting surface plasmon polaritons to realize nanopatterns with ultrahigh-resolution beyond the diffraction limit. This feature enables broad application prospects in the micro-nanomanufacturing field. The lithography flight head, carrying a plasmonic lens (PL), with an approximately 10 nm spacer from the substrate, is the core of the system for effective etching. This paper investigates the flight state of a PL-loaded lithography head on the air film, based on computational fluid dynamics analysis. We found that the influence of the PL on the flight height produces an edge effect. This means that a PL fabricated on the edge region can significantly affect the flight height of the head. By processing the PL at a distance of 10 μm from the edge of the slider tail block, a steady 37 nm linewidth depth pattern was finally realized, using a rotational near-field photolithography system.