When working with Electron Beam Lithography (EBL), we normally talk about the electron beam after it has already been generated. We talk about beam current, aperture, focus, stigmatism, writing patterns and dose. But I had a more basic question: Where…
When I first started learning about positioning in an EBL system, I thought alignment marks were mainly used to tell the machine where the wafer was. But then I had another question. If the wafer is already mounted on a…
While learning more about electron beam lithography, I had one practical question. Suppose someone gives me a GDSII file and asks me to write the pattern using EBL. The pattern is already designed. The dimensions are already there in the…
While learning Electron Beam Lithography, I kept seeing different beam-current values such as 25 pA, 1 nA and 12 nA. At first, I thought the choice should be simple. If a higher beam current means more electrons are reaching the…
While learning electron beam lithography, I kept seeing values such as 200 µC/cm², 300 µC/cm² or 500 µC/cm² in exposure conditions. I understood that these numbers were related to how much we expose the resist, but one thing confused me.…
By Gurwinder Singh Introduction When we talk about semiconductor chips, one sentence comes up again and again: “Modern chips contain billions of transistors.” I have heard this many times, and because of that, it is easy to start thinking that…
Published by Gurwinder Singh Introduction While learning Electron Beam Lithography, I came across two words again and again: Positive resist and negative resist. At first, I thought the names might have something to do with electrical charge. We are using…
By Gurwinder Singh Introduction During my work as a field service engineer, I spend most of my time around Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) systems. I see researchers loading wafers, selecting exposure recipes, and writing incredibly small patterns that are impossible…
Introduction In Part 1, we explored how researchers use Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) to transform scientific ideas into nanoscale devices. We looked at transistor development, quantum computing, and the research process that begins with a simple question and evolves through…