Nodal photolithography : lithography via far-field optical nodes in the resist

Abstract

In this thesis, I investigate one approach - stimulated emission depletion - to surmounting the diffraction limitation of optical lithography. This approach uses farfield optical nodes to orchestrate reversible, saturable optical transitions in certain photoresist compounds. After addressing prior work in resolution enhancement via optical nodes (for metastable atom localization, reversible absorbance modulation, and fluorescence microscopy), I examine the issues of resist formulation, optical pulse width bounds due to resist kinetics, and patterning schemes for low- and high-volume throughput. The experimental realization of stimulated emission depletion is described, and challenges for lithography using this technique are discussed.