Three-dimensional nanolithography with light forces

We present the first realization of three-dimensional lithography on the nanometer scale using atom optical techniques. It has already been shown that, with atom lithography, two-dimensional lateral structures of 50 nm can be obtained. In our experiment we utilize the resonant enhancement of light forces to address specifically one species of a multi-component beam. Thus a host and a dopant material can be evaporated simultaneously, but only the dopant is focused and thus spatially modulated by the light field. In this paper we show that this patterning of the dopant concentration on the nanometer scale can cause macroscopic effects such as wrinkle pattern formation in a film.  2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.