TY - JOUR AU - Kunik, D. AU - Pietrasanta, L. I. AU - Martínez, O. E. PY - 2010/01/11 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Surface Percolation and Growth. An alternative scheme for breaking the diffraction limit in optical patterning JF - Papers in Physics JA - Pap. Phys. VL - 1 IS - 0 SE - Articles DO - 10.4279/pip.010008 UR - https://www.papersinphysics.org/papersinphysics/article/view/21 SP - 010008 AB - <p>A nanopatterning scheme is presented by which the structure height can be controlled in the tens of nanometers range and the lateral resolution is a factor at least three times better than the point spread function of the writing beam. The method relies on the initiation of the polymerization mediated by a very inefficient energy transfer from a fluorescent dye molecule after single photon absorption. The mechanism has the following distinctive steps: the dye adsorbs on the substrate surface with a higher concentration than in the bulk, upon illumination it triggers the polymerization, then isolated islands develop and merge into a uniform structure (percolation), which subsequently grows until the illumination is interrupted. This percolation mechanism has a threshold that introduces the needed nonlinearity for the fabrication of structures beyond the diffraction limit.</p><p><strong>Received:</strong> 9 November 2009, <strong>Accepted:</strong> 29 December 2009; <strong>Edited by:</strong> J. J. Niemela; <strong>Reviewed by:</strong> H. Cabrera Morales, Inst. Venezolano Invest. Cient&iacute;ficas, Venezuela; <strong>DOI:</strong> 10.4279/PIP.010008</p> ER -