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（公法111-5）资助的。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在开发一种具有高分辨率、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工具成本高、掩模成本高、不灵活（在光学投影光刻的情况下）或工具成本高、吞吐量低、复杂性高（在扫描电子束光刻的情况下）的问题。新兴的带板阵列光刻技术（ZPAL）及其通过吸光调制光刻技术（AMOL）将光学扩展到100纳米以下，将缓解这些问题，同时为纳米图案提供前所未有的灵活性。提出的项目包括三个重点：首先，制造包含超过1000个带板的带板阵列，每个带板的数值孔径（NA）大于0.85；第二，制造包含超过1000个带片的二色色谱阵列，每个带片的数值孔径（NA）大于0.85；最后，设计了高效透镜，克服了传统带片和二色镜的许多局限性。该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是创造一种制造工具，通过大幅缩短开发周期时间和制造成本，使纳米结构的开发和制造成为一个新的范例。目前，可用于制造这种纳米结构的工具在灵活性、分辨率、成本和产量方面受到高度限制。由于无掩模，该技术提供了灵活性，使纳米结构的设计者能够快速实现他们的设计在硬件上进行原型制作，甚至是小批量生产。这种新工具可能会使广泛的行业受益，包括微机电设备（MEMs）、纳米机电设备（nem）、纳米电子学、纳米磁学、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.