PLASMONIC LITHOGRAPHY FOR PATTERNING HIGH ASPECT-RATIO NANOSTRUCTURES

摘要

A plasmonic device incorporating a special hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) metamaterial is used for plasmonic lithography, including ultraviolet (UV) lithography. It may be a Type II HMM (ϵ_∥0 and ϵ_⊥0) whose tangential component of the permittivity ϵ_∥ is close to zero. Due to the high anisotropy of the Type II epsilon near zero (ENZ) HMM, only one plasmonic mode can propagate horizontally with low loss in a waveguide system with ENZ HMM as its core. In certain aspects, a Type II ENZ HMM comprises alternating layers of aluminum/aluminum oxide films and the associated unusual mode of light transmission is used to expose a photosensitive layer in a specially designed lithography system. Methods for making patterns of nanofeatures via such plasmonic lithography are also provided, including as a plasmonic roller device.