Localizing surface plasmons with a metal-cladding superlens for projecting deep-subwavelength patterns

Superlens, which is proposed to realize sub-diffraction-limited optical imaging, has been experimentally verified (N. Fang et al., Science 308, 534 (2005), D. Melville and R.J. Blaikie, Opt. Express 13, 2127 (2005)). Based on the basic experimental configuration, here we propose a metal-cladding structure developed to effectively localize the surface plasmons for projecting deep-subwavelength patterns. We give a numerical analysis on the structure and show that proper choices of incident wavelength can realize either deep-subwavelength interference patterning or high-quality optical imaging. The study presented here is believed to provide an approach for developing high-resolution optical lithography.

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