SBIR Phase II: Dual-Wavelength Diffractive Optics for Absorbance-Modulation Optical Lithography

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案(公共法律111-5)资助的。这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目旨在开发一种能够实现高分辨率、高吞吐量、灵活性、低成本和可扩展性的光学无掩模光刻技术。当前的光刻技术存在高工具成本、高掩模成本和不灵活的问题(在光学投影光刻的情况下)，或者高工具成本、非常低的生产能力和高复杂性(在扫描电子束光刻的情况下)。新兴的波带板阵列光刻技术(ZPAL)及其通过吸收调制光学光刻(AMOL)扩展到100纳米以下的光学技术将缓解这些问题，同时在纳米光刻方面提供前所未有的灵活性。拟议的项目包括三个主要方面：第一，制造包含1000多个波带片的波带片阵列，每个波带片的数值孔径(NA)大于0.85；第二，制造包含1000多个波带片的重铬酸盐阵列，每个波带片的数值孔径(NA)大于0.85；以及最后，设计高效率透镜，以克服传统波带片和分色片的许多限制。该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是创造了一种制造工具，它将通过大幅减少开发周期时间和制造成本，实现纳米结构开发和制造的新范例。目前，可用于制造这种纳米结构的工具在灵活性、分辨率、成本和吞吐量方面都非常有限。由于没有掩膜，这项技术提供了灵活性，使纳米结构的设计者能够快速地在硬件中实现他们的设计，用于原型甚至小批量制造。这一新工具可能会使范围广泛的行业受益，包括微电子机械设备(MEMS)、纳米机电设备(NEM)、纳米电子、纳米磁性、集成光学、光子学、生物芯片和微流体。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop an optical-maskless-lithography technology that is capable of high resolution, high throughput, flexibility, low cost, and extendibility. Current lithography technologies suffer from the problems of high tool costs, high mask costs, and inflexibility (in the case of optical-projection lithography), or high tool costs, very low throughputs, and high complexity (in the case of scanning-electron-beam lithography). The emerging Zone-Plate-Array-Lithography (ZPAL) technology and its optical extension to sub-100 nanometers via absorbance-modulation optical lithography (AMOL) will mitigate these issues, while providing unprecedented flexibility in nanopatterning. The proposed project covers three major thrusts: firstly, the manufacture of zone-plate arrays containing over 1000 zone plates, each with a numerical-aperture (NA) greater than 0.85; second, the manufacture of dichromat arrays containing over 1000 zone plates, each with a numerical-aperture (NA) greater than 0.85; and lastly, the design of high-efficiency lenses to overcome many of limitations of conventional zone plates and dichromats. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the creation of a fabrication tool which will enable a new paradigm in the development and manufacture of nanostructures by sharply reducing the development-cycle time and manufacturing costs. At present, the tools that are available for the creation of such nanostructures are highly limited in flexibility, resolution, cost and throughput. Being maskless, this technology provides flexibility by enabling the designers of nanostructures to quickly realize their designs in hardware for prototyping and even low-volume manufacturing. This new tool could potentially benefit a wide spectrum of industries including micro-electro-mechanical devices (MEMs), nano-electro-mechanical devices (NEMs), nano-electronics, nano-magnetics, integrated optics, photonics, biochips, and microfluidics.