Distributed axis electron-beam system for lithography and inspection—preliminary experimental results

A distributed-axis system can be used to avoid the space-charge limits of conventional electron-beam lithography systems. Our approach is to use a uniform magnetic field to simultaneously focus an array of beams. We have built a test bed and report the first experimental results. Sub-100 nm resolution has been obtained and is presently limited by aperture size and interference. Sub-10 nm resolution should be possible given a suitably small source.