Near-field photolithography with a solid immersion lens

We have exposed 190 nm lines in photoresist by focusing a laser beam (lambd a=442 nm) in a solid immersion lens (SIL) that is mounted on a flexible can tilever and scanned by a modified commercial atomic force microscope. The s can rate was 1 cm/s, which is several orders of magnitude faster than typic al reports of near-field lithography using tapered optical fibers. The enha nced speed is a result of the high optical efficiency (about 10(-1)) of the SIL. Once exposed with the SIL, the photoresist was developed and the patt ern was transferred to the silicon substrate by plasma etching. (C) 1999 Am erican Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)05204-3].