NIST Boulder Microfabrication Facility Acquires Advanced Electron Beam Lithography Machine
The NIST Boulder Microfabrication Facility (BMF) has recently acquired a high-end electron beam lithography machine, significantly enhancing researchers’ capabilities to create nanoscale structures. This new system, which can pattern features smaller than 10 nanometers, will be used to develop tools for various applications including quantum information processing, energy-efficient lighting, advanced computing, medical imaging, high-resolution sensors, and cancer treatment.
The e-beam lithography machine, which uses a beam of electrons to pattern features on silicon wafers, offers several advantages over the previous scanning electron microscope (SEM) used by researchers. It provides faster write speeds (a thousand times faster), greater precision (tracking wafer position to within 10 nm), and the ability to cover entire wafer surfaces with nanofeatures. This increased capability will enable the development of tiny devices for spintronics applications, which offer significant energy reduction compared to conventional electronics, as well as large arrays of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) for quantum computing.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2017/09/nist-boulder-microfab-lab-goes-nano
Keywords: Nanowires, Electron beam lithography, Quantum computing, Nanoscale structures, Spintronics
