Resolution enhancement in holographic lithography through photoresist response modeling

The resolution of images in digital holography is fundamentally limited by the pixelization of spatial light modulators (SLMs). When applied directly to holographic lithography working in the Fraunhofer regime, the Nyquist theorem restricts the number of controllable samples in the focal plane to four times the SLM pixel count. We demonstrate that incorporating photoresist exposure and development into the propagation model introduces nonlinearities, effectively expanding spatial bandwidth beyond the Nyquist limit. We support this resolution gain using time-averaged batches of holograms to compensate for the noise introduced by the mismatch between the hologram and focal-plane degrees of freedom. Simulation results confirm that this approach can encode dense metasurface arrays with individually controlled meta-atoms, far exceeding conventional limits imposed by intensity-only models. This technique offers a pathway to rapid, maskless, and cost-effective prototyping of advanced photonic and electronic architectures.