Two-surface-plasmon-polariton-absorption based nanolithography

We propose and demonstrate the two-surface-plasmon-polariton-absorption (TSPPA), which is a nonlinear effect by absorbing two surface-plasmon-polaritons (SPPs), as well as a nanolithography technique based on TSPPA. The TSPPA effect is verified with the plasmonic interference structure to exclude the possibility of two photon absorption. Benefiting from the short wavelength and the field enhancement of SPP as well as the selective transfer of plasmonic patterns into photoresist induced by TSPPA, resist strips with the linewidth of ∼λ0/11 are achieved by a single illumination on the plasmonic mask with the femtosecond laser for only 15 s, which shows great potential for future large-area nanolithography.

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