Scalable Plasmonic Nanolithography: Prototype System Design and Construction

Maskless nanolithography is an agile and cost effective approach if their throughputs can be scaled for mass production purposes. Using plasmonic nanolithography (PNL) approach, direct pattern writing was successfully demonstrated with around 20 nm half-pitch at high speed. Here, we report our recent efforts of implementing a high-throughput PNL prototype system with unique metrology and control features, which are designed to use an array of plasmonic lenses to pattern sub-100 nm features on a rotating substrate. Taking the advantage of air bearing surface techniques, the system can expose the wafer pixel by pixel with a speed of ∼10 m/s, much faster than any conventional scanning based lithography system. It is a low-cost, high-throughput maskless approach for the next generation lithography and also for the emerging nanotechnology applications, such as nanoscale metrology and imaging.