On the Relationship between Resolution Enhancement and Multiphoton Absorption Rate in Quantum Lithography

Abstract

The proposal of quantum lithography [Boto et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2733 (2000)] is studied via a rigorous formalism. It is shown that, contrary to Boto et al.'s heuristic claim, the multiphoton absorption rate of a ``NOON'' quantum state is actually lower than that of a classical state with otherwise identical parameters. The proof-of-concept experiment of quantum lithography [D'Angelo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 013602 (2001)] is also analyzed in terms of the proposed formalism, and the experiment is shown to have a reduced multiphoton absorption rate in order to emulate quantum lithography accurately. Finally, quantum lithography by the use of a jointly Gaussian quantum state of light is investigated, in order to illustrate the trade-off between resolution enhancement and multiphoton absorption rate.

14 pages, 7 figures, submitted, v2: rewritten in response to referees' comments, v3: rewritten and extended, v4: accepted by Physical Review A

References in corpus (5)

• Quantum-enhanced measurements: beating the standard quantum limit
• Quantum Interferometric Optical Lithography: Exploiting Entanglement to Beat The Diffraction Limit
• Two-photon diffraction and quantum lithography
• Entangled-State Lithography: Tailoring any Pattern with a Single State
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