Electron beam lithography on irregular surfaces using an evaporated resist.

An electron beam resist is typically applied by spin-coating, which cannot be reliably applied on nonplanar, irregular, or fragile substrates. Here we demonstrate that the popular negative electron beam resist polystyrene can be coated by thermal evaporation. A high resolution of 30 nm half-pitch was achieved using the evaporated resist. As a proof of concept of patterning on irregular surfaces, we fabricated nanostructures on the AFM cantilever and the optical fiber. Although an ice (H2O) resist has also been recently demonstrated as being capable of nanopatterning on irregular and fragile substrates, it requires specially designed accessories mounted inside a SEM chamber, whereas our process works with any thermal evaporator and is thus simpler and much more accessible. Nanofabrication on nonplanar surfaces may find applications in fields such as (AFM) tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for chemical analysis and lab-on-fiber technology.