Three-beam interference lithography methodology

Three-beam interference lithography represents a technology capable of producing two-dimensional periodic structures for applications such as micro- and nanoelectronics, photonic crystal devices, metamaterial devices, biomedical structures, and subwavelength optical elements. In the present work, a systematic methodology for implementing optimized three-beam interference lithography is presented. To demonstrate this methodology, specific design and alignment parameters, along with the range of experimentally feasible lattice constants, are quantified for both hexagonal and square periodic lattice patterns. Using this information, example photonic crystal rodlike structures and hole-like structures are fabricated by appropriately controlling the recording wavevector configuration along with the individual beam amplitudes and polarizations, and by changing between positive- or negative-type photoresists. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3535557]