Formation of nanometer-scale structures using conventional optical lithography

• DOI: 10.1016/j.tsf.2007.03.077
• Publication Date: 2007-04-02T07:12:44Z
• Authors: Kyoung S. Kim; Kyoung Nam Lee; Yonghan Roh
• Keywords: Nanometre; Next-generation lithography; Stencil lithography; Photoresist; Ashing; Computational lithography

Abstract We investigated a new method to form the line-and-space patterns with a nanometer-scale using the conventional optical lithography technique and the metal deposition/liftoff process. The ashing of the negative photo resist defined by the conventional optical lithography technique results in the proper profiles including a high aspect ratio (i.e., height/width value of the patterns) for the formation of nanometer-scale structures. We demonstrated that the metal electrodes with the nanometer-scale gap of 20 nm or less can be easily obtained by the newly proposed method without employing the highly sophisticated lithography tools including an electron beam lithography.