Arrayed miniature electron beam columns for high throughput sub-100 nm lithography

Abstract

In recent years, considerable progress has been made on an approach based on a novel concept which combines scanning tunneling microscope, microfabricated lenses, and field emission technologies to achieve microminiaturized low-voltage electron beam columns with performance surpassing the conventional column. High throughput lithography is a potentially very important application for these microfabricated columns which measure only millimeters in dimensions. This is to be achieved using an array of these minicolumns in parallel in a multibeam mode with one or more columns per chip. The low-voltage operation is attractive because proximity effect corrections may not need to be applied. In addition, an arrayed microcolumn system also has the potential of reducing the cost of the overall system through the compaction of the mechanical system. The throughout advantages for such an arrayed system based on different beam forming optics and pattern generation approaches will be discussed. In addition to lithography, a wide range of other applications for such an arrayed system such as testing, metrology, storage, etc., can also be considered.