Evaluation of Particle Beam Lithography for Fabrication of Metallic Nano-structures

Metallic nanostructures have a wide range of application from electronics to biological imaging and sensing, photonics, biomimicry and information and energy storage. Bio-functionality of natural nano-structures has recently drawn the attention of bioengineers to mimic the high-resolution nanostructures on the metallic substrate. However, hydrothermal, wet and dry etching methods have a good throughput to fabricate the metallic nano-structures, the resolution and morphology control has been restricted. Recent advances in particle beam lithography (Focused ion beam lithography and electron beam lithography) are able to fabricate the high-resolution nanostructure on metals. The advantage of particle beam lithography is to control the nanostructure morphology via optimizing the process variable. This paper reviewed the throughput and resolution of particle beam lithography including Electron beam lithography (EBL), focused ion beam milling (FIB) and Ion Beam Induced Deposition (IBID) to fabricate metallic nano-structure sub-200nm pattern. The outcome of this research could guide bioengineers to select the best approach to fabricate sub-200nm features on the metallic substrate.