title: Beam pen lithography.
abstract: Lithography techniques are currently being developed to fabricate nanoscale components for integrated circuits, medical diagnostics and optoelectronics. In conventional far-field optical lithography, lateral feature resolution is diffraction-limited. Approaches that overcome the diffraction limit have been developed, but these are difficult to implement or they preclude arbitrary pattern formation. Techniques based on near-field scanning optical microscopy can overcome the diffraction limit, but they suffer from inherently low throughput and restricted scan areas. Highly parallel two-dimensional, silicon-based, near-field scanning optical microscopy aperture arrays have been fabricated, but aligning a non-deformable aperture array to a large-area substrate with near-field proximity remains challenging. However, recent advances in lithographies based on scanning probe microscopy have made use of transparent two-dimensional arrays of pyramid-shaped elastomeric tips (or 'pens') for large-area, high-throughput patterning of ink molecules. Here, we report a massively parallel scanning probe microscopy-based approach that can generate arbitrary patterns by passing 400-nm light through nanoscopic apertures at each tip in the array. The technique, termed beam pen lithography, can toggle between near- and far-field distances, allowing both sub-diffraction limit (100 nm) and larger features to be generated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60208-3113, USA.
authors.forename: Fengwei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huo
authors.forename: Gengfeng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Xing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Louise R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Giam
authors.forename: Jinan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chai
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Wooyoung
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shim
authors.forename: Chad A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Mirkin
mesh_terms: D020527:Microscopy, Scanning Probe / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers