Easy writing of nanopatterns on a polymer film using electrostatic nanolithography

Abstract

The fabrication of poly(methacrylic acid) nanopatterns, with sub-100 nm feature dimensions, on a silicon substrate using a negatively biased atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip was investigated. The kinetics, growth, and optimization of the conditions for nanopatterning using electrostatic nanolithography of the polymer film were studied. It was observed that the features of nanopatterns created from polymer films depend on the type of polymer used and the applied bias and speed of the AFM tip. This method was found to be a highly versatile, direct-write method to produce well-defined nanostructures on a polymer film.