eWrite by Raith: A new high Speed & high Resolution Lithography Technology for Research
High resolution lithography was and is the desire of many scientists and engineers. Tools based on a single focused electron beam deliver sub 10nm writing resolution. As the electron beam lithography is a mask less technique the technology is very much liked for its flexibility. You may say that the researcher designs structures with an ultra-sharp pencil in his hand (picture 1). Therefore electron beam lithography tools are used in many research fields, e.g.: sensors, transistors, lasers, MEMS (micro mechanical systems), NEMS (nano mechanical systems), spintronics, photonics ? just to name a few.
Picture 1: A focused electron beam as ?ultra-sharp pencil? for the scientist
In recent years new wishes came up: Writing on large areas, the combination of complex structures in one device, even fabrication of devices in amounts. In other words: High resolution is no longer enough, but there is a demand for reasonable writing speed. Industry labs had always the money to afford the expensive lithography engines to cover such demands; But public research institutes or universities?
The newly developed Raith eWrite technology offers now high resolution at high speed, but in a cost frame affordable for universities. eWrite technology is incorporated in Raith?s VOYAGER system (picture 2). VOYAGER comes as a turnkey system on small footprint with all necessary accessories and all software from one hand. Active vibration isolation and a magnetic field cancellation are options to comply with difficult environments. A temperature-stabilized housing is standard, which relaxes the requirements on lab conditions a lot.
Picture 2: The Raith VOYAGER Electron Beam Lithography Tool
Optical devices are prime examples for large area writing. A one square centimetre device may come along with many Gigabytes of design data. Picture 3 shows a part of a Fresnel lens written with Raith VOYAGER in 3D. Remarkable is the writing time for the device, which is less than an hour for one square centimetre.
Picture 3: Part of a Fresnel lens (3D structure) written in thick resist with Raith VOYAGER
Among the first customers of VOYAGER were universities (e.g. Lund University in Sweden), public research institutions (e.g. Naval Research Labs in the US) and small and medium sized enterprises. A first order from Poland is received as well and the installation will be carried out during summer time.