Professor Han Jae-won’s research team published a study that presents the possibility of 10nm-class lithography which is based on plasmonic technology as a next-generation exposure equipment source in the semiconductor field. On November 20th, this study was designated as the cover article of Advanced Optical Materials, a world-renowned research journal in the optical-materials sector. The research team announced their success in developing an exposure equipment technology that innovatively improves resolution due to plasmonic technology. The study had aimed to overcome the limits of existing semiconductor exposure equipment technology which have been a major obstacle in the production of semiconductors. The research team has obtained some 20 domestic and international patents for their source technology, and these are anticipated to play an important role in the commercialization of semiconductor production equipment and the enhancement of international competitiveness of national semiconductor industry technology. Lithography technology is a process technology that realizes nano patterns on substrates with light, and is the fundamental production technology of DRAM semiconductor and LCD display products. These products have relied fully on high-price lithography equipment, which has been a big trouble to the improvement of competitiveness in the semiconductor and display industry. As a next-generation semiconductor lithography technology, the current near-field lithography has received attention for its power of 30-nm resolution; however, due to its slow recording speed and its characteristic to maintain the gap of several nano meters, it entails a number of limits of actual applications. To overcome such limitations, Professor Han’s research team developed a circular contact optical probe that has a high degree of location precision. At the same time, the team introduced the diamond-like carbon thin film and monolayers as lubricating layers to the optical probe and recording media, which enabled high-speed patterning without external gap control devices. The study also theoretically presented the feasibility of resolution limit of plasmonic lithography technology and less-than-10 nm nano-patterning. The team has actually succeeded in constructing a nano structure of 22 nm line-width at high speed on a polymer photosensitive recording medium, an empirical case that confirms the presented theory. This has accelerated the development of high-speed plasmonic lithography technology with the use of parallel-form optical probe, as well as the development of next-generation lithography equipment that can be applied in the semiconductor industry.