Surface plasmon-assisted nano-lithography with a perfect contact aluminum mask of a hexagonal dot array

Abstract

Surface plasmon lithography is potentially an alternative technique for high resolution patterning. However, implementation involves high cost and challenging fabrication steps. Here, we report nano-patterning assisted by surface plasmons with a perfectly contacted mask using colloidal lithography. A nano-scaled aluminum mask was fabricated using closed packed polystyrene spheres with a simple, fast, and low-cost method, and the loss of surface plasmon waves was reduced by the perfect contact between the mask and the photoresist. A photoresist pattern of two-dimensional hexagonal annular ring arrays was produced by illuminating light of 436 nm wavelength, and the width of the obtained annular ring was approximately λ/6. The simulation results showed that the proposed structure had a sufficiently high contrast value for lithography, and the fabrication patterns and the simulation results presented good agreement.