Printing a 500Å Period Grating Using X-Ray Interference

Abstract

Recently a great deal of attention has been directed towards developing, analyzing, and fabricating a new generation of electronic devices which depend upon and attempt to exploit quantum effects [1-3]. Such devices, known as quantum effect devices, exhibit transport characteristics which are described by quantum mechanics and not by macroscopic averaged quantities. Quantum effect devices are required to be much smaller in size than typical microelectronic devices. A major issue in the fabrication of these devices is the ability to write fine patterns of less than 0.05 (上m pitch. Some candidate technologies which have been explored include electron beams, x-rays, and focused ion beams [4]. Electron beam lithography has been the most commonly used method thus far to produce features at this length scale, but is limited by the proximity effect. In this work, we choose to pursue a two grating x-ray interference technique as a method to produce finely spaced lines and spaces. X-rays are not limited by the proximity effect and thus a higher contrast resist pattern can be expected.