LARGE AREA NANOSCALE PATTERNING BY INTERFEROMETRIC LITHOGRAPHY – NANOPHOTONICS AND NANOFLUIDICS

Abstract

Interferometric lithography offers a facile, inexpensive, large-area fabrication capability for the formation of large areas of nanoscale periodic features. A self-aligned frequency doubling process to a 22-nm half-pitch is demonstrated. Many investigations of nanoscale phenomena require large-area samples, both for scientific investigations and certainly for ultimate large-scale applications. The utility of interferometric lithography is demonstrated to applications in nanophotonics and nanofluidics. For nanophotonics, metamaterial fabrication, negative index metamaterials and plasmonic applications are discussed. Two approaches to the fabrication of nanofluidic structures: etching and oxidation of silicon substrates, and colloidal deposition of silica nanoparticles to form porous walls and roofs followed by calcination to remove the photoresist and sinter the particles. These later structures have evident biomimetic functionality.