50 years of electron beam lithography: Contributions from Jena (Germany)

It is the aim of this paper to present an overview of 50 years of dedicated work on electron beam lithography and to highlight the contributions from Jena/Germany starting in the 1960’s. Already in 1958, the forming of contamination layers was a well known, although unwanted in most cases, side effect in electron microscopy. Buck (D.A. Buck et al., in: Proc. Eastern Joint Computer Conf., 1959, pp. 55–59.) from MIT intended to utilize this effect to create an etching mask for his vapor deposition layers. In the 1960’s there was a huge interest in investigating and utilizing the advantages of electron beam lithography. This was the situation when the Jena group entered the community. A decade later, at the spring trade fair in Leipzig/Germany, the group presented a Gaussian beam lithography system (1977) as well as a variable-shaped beam system (1978) to the world. Until now more than 100 tools have been manufactured and sold. A persistent analysis of and interaction with the customers’ needs delivers a good feedback and ensures the permanent high quality of the state of the art lithography products. The group pioneered and shaped the development of e-beam systems with respect to specific aspects.