High-speed optical near-field photolithography by super resolution near-field structure

We propose a new lithography technique using the optical near field. This technique makes use of a super-resolution near-field structure (Super-RENS) which was first proposed by us for high-density data storage. Using this structure, we have fabricated narrow grooves in a photoresist film spin-coated on a Super-RENS disk at a constant linear velocity of 6 m/s and about 400 relations with a mercury lamp (lambda = 365 nm) for exposing the photoresist film and a semiconductor laser (lambda = 635 nm) for generating a small optical aperture. By adjusting the laser power, narrow grooves with a full-width at hall-maximum (FWHM) of less than 200 nm could be fabricated in the photoresist film. Moreover, a fabrication speed 10(4) or 10(5) times greater than that with the conventional techniques using a near-field scanning optical microscope was achieved.