STTR Phase I: A Nanolithography System for Low Cost Nanostructures Research and Applications

第一阶段小型企业技术转移（STTR）项目将通过实验证明，桌面点x射线源将暴露时间减少至少100倍。该项目的大学合作伙伴已经展示了使用软x射线的深度-低于100纳米的纳米光刻技术，该技术可以在平面衬底上精确制造复杂的纳米结构。然而，由于缺乏廉价的软x射线曝光工具，软x射线纳米光刻的潜力受到严重限制。目前使用的电子轰击点源功率低，效率仅为0.01%。因此，完成一次曝光需要几个小时。SRL和它的大学合作伙伴提议建立一个桌面、密集等离子聚焦、x射线曝光源，其效率将达到1-2%。等离子体源能够将10-20瓦的可用软x射线辐射到4个立体空间，将暴露时间减少100倍或更多。在第二阶段，SRL将制造一个100pps的源，目标是创建一个可以商业化的紧凑封装。深亚100纳米光刻技术在生物科学、薄膜、光学元件、显示器和传感器、纳米电子学以及大分子和纳米颗粒的组织和操作方面具有潜在的应用前景。此外，高功率、千瓦级的x射线点源将为x射线光刻提供模块化、经济实惠的近距离源。非半导体应用的商业市场预计每年将超过2亿美元。低成本、紧凑的深度-亚100nm光刻系统对于开发这些应用至关重要。

This Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) project will experimentally demonstrate that a tabletop point x-ray source reduces exposure time by a factor of at least 100. The university partners in this project have demonstrated deep-sub-100 nm nanolithography using soft x-rays which enables fabrication of complex nanostructures with precision and accuracy on planar substrates. However, the potential of soft x-ray nanolithography has been severely limited by the lack of inexpensive soft x-ray exposure tools. Electron-bombardment point sources, which are currently used, have low power and efficiencies of O.01%. As a result, it takes several hours to complete an exposure. SRL and its university partner propose to build a tabletop, dense plasma focus, x-ray exposure source that will have efficiencies of 1-2%. The plasma source, which will be capable of radiating 10-20 watts of usable soft x-rays into 4 steradians, will reduce the exposure time by a factor of 100 or more. In Phase II, SRL will fabricate a 100 pps source with the goal of creating a compact package that can be commercialized. Deep-sub 100 nm lithography has potential applications in the biological sciences, thin films, optical components, displays and sensors, nanoelectronics and the organization and manipulation of macromolecules and nanoparticles. In addition, a high power, kilowatt-class x-ray point source would provide a modular, affordable proximity source for x-ray lithography. The commercial market for non-semiconductor applications is predicted to be greater than $200 million annually. A low cost, compact deep-sub-100nm lithography system is essential to exploiting these applications.