Abstract: A method for optical transmission of a structure into a recording medium which can be transformed locally from a first undefined state into a second defined state by irradiating with photons from a photon source. The two states of the recording medium are manifested in different physical and/or chemical properties of the recording medium. At least one photon source having a photon flux of less than 104 photons per second is selected for the irradiation with the photons. It was recognized that with such a low photon flux especially fine structures can advantageously be transmitted into the recording medium without the irradiation having to be partially blocked by a mask. In this manner, for a given wavelength (energy) of the photons, structures can be transmitted that are considerably smaller than the width, defined by the diffraction limit, of the probability distribution for the locations at which the emitted photons are incident.

Abstract: A method for optical transmission of a structure into a recording medium which can be transformed locally from a first undefined state into a second defined state by irradiating with photons from a photon source. The two states of the recording medium are manifested in different physical and/or chemical properties of the recording medium. At least one photon source having a photon flux of less than 104 photons per second is selected for the irradiation with the photons. It was recognized that with such a low photon flux especially fine structures can advantageously be transmitted into the recording medium without the irradiation having to be partially blocked by a mask. In this manner, for a given wavelength (energy) of the photons, structures can be transmitted that are considerably smaller than the width, defined by the diffraction limit, of the probability distribution for the locations at which the emitted photons are incident.