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

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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.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean Government (MSIP) (No. NRF-2014R1A2A2A01005770).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Display & Nano Convergence Lab, School of Electrical Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, Korea

    Eun Sung Kim, Yong Min Kim & Kyung Cheol Choi

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  1. Eun Sung Kim
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  2. Yong Min Kim
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  3. Kyung Cheol Choi
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Correspondence to Kyung Cheol Choi.

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Kim, E.S., Kim, Y.M. & Choi, K.C. Surface plasmon-assisted nano-lithography with a perfect contact aluminum mask of a hexagonal dot array. Plasmonics 11, 1337–1342 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-016-0180-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-016-0180-y

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