On the efficiency of quantum lithography

Christian Kothe, Gunnar Björk, Shuichiro Inoue, Mohamed Bourennane

Published 2010-06-11, updated 2011-01-17Version 3

Quantum lithography promises, in principle, unlimited feature resolution, independent of wavelength. However, in the literature at least two different theoretical descriptions of quantum lithography exist. They differ in to which extent they predict that the photons retain spatial correlation from generation to the absorption, and while both predict the same feature size, they differ vastly in predicting how efficiently a quantum lithographic pattern can be exposed. Until recently, essentially all experiments reported have been performed in such a way that it is difficult to distinguish between the two theoretical explanations. However, last year an experiment was performed which gives different outcomes for the two theories. We comment on the experiment and show that the model that fits the data unfortunately indicates that the trade-off between resolution and efficiency in quantum lithography is very unfavourable.