Nanosphere lithography

Abstract

The development of lithography was one of the driving forces in microfabrication technology. However, today the improvement of this technology is restrictive for further shrinking of microelectronic and micromechanical devices, because conventional lithography allows resolutions down to 100 nm. So there is a need for newer methods which allow the fabrication of structures in the sub-100 nm range. But the throughput is low and the equipment is expensive. Thus, newer, cheaper and especially faster technologies arouse interest in research and development. Nanosphere lithography (NSL) is a low-cost, versatile method for patterning and generation of nanostructures down to a few nanometers. NSL utilizes monodisperse polystyrene latex nanospheres self-assembled into a hexagonal close-packed monolayer and deposited onto a substrate. Combining related techniques known from semiconductor and microelectromechanical system (MEMS) fabrication, various ordered arrays of nanoparticles, nanotubes and template structures can be prepared.