Development of electron beam lithography for nanoscale devices

A number of modem techniques for microelectronics, microoptics, optoelectronics, and micromechanics are required the lithography of objects presented big arrays of nanoscale structures of the complicated form. The electron beam lithography tools with Gaussian vector scan beam and the projection electron lithography systems (SCALPEL and LEEPL), having a few nanometers resolution, good flexibility, and large work field, have a good outlook for creation of devices of this class. Only the first may be used for direct writing. But the writing speed may decrease dramatically with reducing of beam diameter d as d(-6) in some case. Increasing the resolution of electron beam-resist system and the throughput are the important problems in this case. The paper is directed on development of theory and strategy of electron beam lithography for its application in the nanometer length scale. The achievements of electron beam lithography are compared with success in the field of optical and x-ray lithography.