WAVE-FRONT ENGINEERING FOR PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY

Physicists have always been fascinated by the very small. These days, the inner structures of everyday items such as the personal computer fall into that size category and warrant our interest. The critical dimensions of individual features of stateoftheart memory chips are now as small as 500 nanometers and are getting smaller. The microwave transistors in some satellite dish receivers require gates smaller than a quarter of a micron.New optical techniques based on the application of fundamental physical principles to photomask design may bring about a revolution in the patterning of integrated circuits. © 1993, American Institute of Physics. All rights reserved.