Introduction

Nanofabrication originated from semiconductor planar process. Unlike mechanical fabrication which uses machine tools to make parts and assemble them into a functioning system, the planar process relies on various lithography methods to pattern polymer resists and transfer the resist patterns into substrate materials. A functioning system is built up layer by layer. As the introduction of nanofabrication, this chapter gives an overview of the planar process and relates it to nanofabrication techniques described in the rest of the chapters. In particular, it emphasizes that each nanofabrication technique introduced in the following chapters is not only described about its capabilities but also its limits, so that the readers are made fully aware what are the best options to choose from a “tool box” of nanofabrication covered by this book.