Micro/nano lithography realized by chemical printing

In this paper, we present and demonstrate a novel, versatile lithography method with high resolution that we call Chemical Lithography (ChemLith). The concept is based on the fact that most of the commonly used photoresists change their solubility upon an acid-catalyzed chemical reaction. In photolithography, Photo Acid Generator (PAG) is mixed in the resist formula, and the acid is generated by photon-initiated reactions. Using photons sets the fundamental limitation of the feature size for photolithography. We therefore propose to physically introduce the catalyzing acid (proton source) to the desired position on the resist surface, using a template in a manner similar to nano-imprint lithography. As a result, this method eliminates the wavelength limitation as well as the thermal, mechanical and material problems commonly associated with nano-imprint lithography.