Abstract

We have demonstrated the lithographic production of a periodic nanostructure by focusing a transversely laser cooled cesium atomic beam with a standing-wave light field. With a self-assembled monolayer used as the resist on a gold surface, exposure to cesium atoms locally changes the wetability. Subsequently a wet-etching process transfers the pattern to the underlying gold film. We have generated lines with a separation of half the wavelength of the cesium D2 line (852 nm) and a width of about 120 nm and covering a large area of approximately 1 mm^2.