Enhanced surface plasmon interference lithography from cavity resonance in the grating slits

Surface plasmon interference lithography based on grating diffraction has been studied both theoretically and experimentally in recent years. In this paper, we demonstrate that the cavity resonance in the grating slits can improve the subwavelength interference, not only the intensity but also the uniformity of the pattern. Both the typical lithography structure which merely consists of periodic metallic gratings and the modified structure equipped with a reflection layer are studied. The finite element method has been performed to study the interference pattern. Numerical simulations show that the property of the interference pattern is the optimum when cavity resonance happens. This enhancement can be applied to all the lithography structures which are based on the grating diffraction.