Dear Anming,

one way that I am aware of is to utilize principles from STED microscopy for nanofabrication.

See for example here: DOI: 10.1002/adom.201400413

Best regards

Mike

Thanks, Mike. STED is a great technique for nano manufacturing for special polymers. Could we expand it to other materials, such as metal?

I never used the method myself so far but I think the group of Prof. Wegener at the KIT in Karlsruhe Germany found some ways to use the structured polymer as matrix and fill the voids afterwards with metal. I can not recall the paper though. I suggest to have a look at their publication list. They are very active in this field of research.

Yes. Mike. I have read several papers from Wegner's group. 

Osakar, thank you too. I am more interested in a far field solution. But both near-field/plasmonics and FIB/FEB are good choices, too. 

Hi Takashi,

Thanks for your excellent answers and solutions. I am afraid that not many are familiar with Fresnel diffraction and relevant nonlinear optics. you need further explain your 3rd solution. 

A scientific nature is to create a simple solution for a complex issue rather than making the issue more complicated. 

I feel that there are many limitation for a near-field solution. We still need focus on a far-field approach.

Hi Takashi,

Alternatively, you may indicate a few relevant papers. What is the relationship between  Abbe's diffraction limit and Fresnel diffraction? 

STED or FRET is optical detection technique rather than fabricating.

FIB or e-beam can do also

Hi Amning!

I worked on STED-lithography during my thesis in Karlsruhe. However, there is only little I can add to the discussion, as already many true things have been written.

I can highly recommend our review article on this topc (DOI: 10.1002/lpor.201100046) where the resolution barrier and current STED-related lithography approaches are explained in detail.

For the question on materials other than polymer, this article on transferring the resulting polymer-structure to titania might be interesting. (DOI: 10.1002/adma.201300896)

Finally, although STED-inspired lithography approaches hold immense potential, they are not yet at the stage of a ready-to-use production tool. So unless you want to contribute in developing these techniques further is is definitely easier to use electron beam lithography.

Best regards,

Joachim

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Hi Joachim,

Exactly I plan to further develop this technique in UT. Nice to get your message. I have read these papers. They are really amazing achievements! Are you continuing in this field or is Dr. Martin Wegener deepening relevant studies? Hope have a chance to discuss with your guys directly and/or look for some collaborations. 

AM

 Hi Joongmok,

We are talking manufacturing rather than imaging. As mentioned by several followers to this questions, STED has been developed for super-resolution nanomanufacturing by several groups (see Joachim, Martin's review). But it is still premature and challenged. It is very attractive. I am thinking to combine it with my nano joining study.

Hi Amning,

I somewhat changed gears and I'm now in imaging, as I joined Stefan Hell's lab. I beleive Martin is continuing an super-resolution lithography, although I don't know any details.

Great to hear that you join the small community of superresolution lithographers. If I can be of any help, just let me know.

Best regards,

Joachim

There are lots of methods and technqiues. You can read my new book "Nonlinear super-resolution nano-optics and applications, Springer 2015". In this book, I give some technical methods for super-resolution optical fabrication.

Dear Prof. Wei,

Very nice book! Thanks for message!

this field still needs revolution ideas.

Just a thought. But making an optic which can resolve more than the first diffraction order  gains resolution. Also this may be effective  by using a holographic corrective.

In reality this would mean probably using large reflective optics with a surfaces better than 1/10th of wave. Just a thought. The other technique I have used is sub-pixel resolution by partial sub pixel shifting..   

Peter

The Abbe limit can be doubled using singular value decomposition of the imaging kernel to calculate the correct optical maks to achieve this. The theory and experimental confirmation in whic a lens of NA 1.3 behaves perfectly as a lens of NA 2.6.See tha attached image. Details are in the attached reprint. The method although easy and spectacular has not been taken up any microscope manufacturers for reasons only known to them!

Roy, very nice technique! why have not manufacturers taken them?

any follow-up research?

Thank you for the compliment. I would say that follow up RESEARCH is not necessary. It works perfectly well as published. Follow up COMMERCIALISATION is required so that everybody could have one, but that might spoil the existing marked for the manufacturers.. Please ask them why they don't make them and if you find out please let me know!

Dear Prof. Hu,

Thank you very your comments, Yes,this field indeed needs revolution ideas. In addition, it is unavoidable that some errors may occur in the book, please don't hesitate to point out them, I will correct in future release. I am also pleased to exchange with you.

Jingsong