Disclosed herein an exposure apparatus capable of implementing a microfabrication onto a work with a higher throughput and a lower cost. The exposure apparatus generates interfering light by crossing two or more branched light beams branched from output light from a coherent light source at a predetermined interfering angle, and exposes the substrate by repeating an irradiation onto the substrate with the interfering light and a conveyance of the substrate. At this moment, the exposure apparatus shapes in interfering light irradiation region on the substrate onto which the interfering light is irradiated into a predetermined shape. Then, the exposure apparatus disposes a plurality of the interfering light irradiation regions in successive shots to be located adjacent to each other on the substrate in a direction of conveying the substrate without the interfering light irradiation regions being overlapped when exposing the substrate while conveying the substrate in a stepwise manner.

A process of an extreme ultraviolet lithography is disclosed. The process includes receiving an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask, an EUV radiation source and an illuminator. The process also includes exposing the EUV mask by a radiation, originating from the EUV radiation source and directed by the illuminator, with a less-than-three-degree chief ray angle of incidence at the object side (CRAO). The process further includes removing most of the non-diffracted light and collecting and directing the diffracted light and the not removed non-diffracted light by a projection optics box (POB) to expose a target.

The present disclosure provides methods and systems for the three-dimensional (3D) printing of 3D objects. Methods and systems provided herein may comprise 3D holographic lithography which may enable the 3D printing of various shapes. Methods and systems provided herein may enable high efficiency 3D holographic printing and may avoid, for example, problems zero-order defects. Methods and systems provided herein comprise methods for printing 3D objects with reduced or minimal inconsistency.

A method for manufacturing grating reference materials having a self-traceability includes: acquiring a mask substrate including a window region and a non-window region; fabricating, a self-traceability mask on the mask substrate by using a laser-focused atomic deposition technique; acquiring a photoresist sample including an extreme ultraviolet photoresist and a second substrate; exposing the extreme ultraviolet photoresist by combining the self-traceability mask with the soft x-ray interference lithography, and then performing a development process after exposing to obtain a photoresist grating structure; and transferring the photoresist grating structure to the second substrate to obtain the grating reference materials.

A particle detection method detects presence and location of particles on a target using measured signals from a plurality of structured illumination patterns. The particle detection method uses measured signals obtained by illuminating the target with structured illumination patterns to detect particles. Specifically, the degree of variation in these measured signals in raw images is calculated to determine whether a particle is present on the target at a particular area of interest.

A method for forming a surface-relief grating with a desired spatial variation of duty cycle in a layer of photoresist includes: providing a first mask bearing a high-resolution grating of linear features, arranging the first mask at a first distance from a substrate, providing a second mask bearing a variable-transmission grating of opaque and transparent linear features that has a designed spatial variation of duty cycle, arranging the second mask at a distance before the first mask such that the linear features of the variable-transmission grating are orthogonal to the linear features of the high-resolution grating, illuminating the second mask while varying the first distance according to displacement Talbot lithography and also displacing the second mask at an angle to its linear features such that there is substantially no component of modulation with the period of the variable-transmission grating in the energy density distribution that exposes the photoresist.

The present disclosure discloses a real-time micro/nano optical field generation and manipulation system and method. The system comprises a light source, a spatial filtering unit, an optical 4F system and a light wave manipulation unit, and the optical 4F system comprises a first lens (set) and a second lens (set) sequentially arranged along a light path. The present disclosure achieves real-time modulation on an incident wavefront through a phase element or a phase element assemble. By dynamically manipulating an incident light sub-wavefront, or the light wave modulation optical element, or different areas of the optical element, or different parts of the optical field in an imaging plane and/or the like by the spatial filtering unit, real time light fields with different parameters are generated in the image plane of the system. By spatial filtering/spatial time division filtering/spatio-temporal multiplexing filtering and/or the change of the phase elements, flexible manipulation on patterns, pattern distribution areas and structural parameters such as the patterns' frequency, their orientations, duty ratios, phases or phase shifts and the like are realized. The system can be flexibly integrated into various lithography or microscopy systems for real-time micro/nano structure fabrication and dynamical or 3D detection with a real time manipulated structural illumination.

A method to form a three-dimensional photonic crystal template with a gradient structure involves irradiating a photoresist composition of a thickness of at least 15 μm from at least four laser beams to yield a periodic patterned with a percolating matrix of mass in constructive volumes of a cured photoresist composition and destructive volumes of voids free of condensed matter where the proportion of constructive volume displays a gradient from the irradiated surface to the substrate after development. For a given light intensity, photoinitiator concentration in the photoresist composition, and a given thickness, by irradiating for a relatively short period, a three-dimensional photonic crystal template displaying a gradient having greater constructive volume proximal the air interface forms and a relatively long irradiation period results in a gradient having greater constructive volume proximal the substrate.

According to examples, a method for phase plate fabrication may be described herein. The method may include providing an interferometer configuration to generate a hologram of a plurality of pinholes. In some examples, the interferometer configuration includes a substrate for photopolymer attachment, a photopolymer having a predetermined thickness, and an exposure mask with a plurality of pinholes. The method may also include exposing the photopolymer with collimated light, via a laser source, through the exposure mask with a plurality of pinholes, wherein the collimated light passes through the exposure mask itself to create a collimated beam, and the plurality of pinholes of the exposure mask to create a spherical wavefront. The collimated beam and the spherical wavefront may help generate the hologram on the photopolymer for use as a phase plate for improved light transmissivity in display systems.

A device for producing a master diffraction grating includes a light source unit and a reflecting member 11. The light source unit forms a first interference fringe by irradiating a substrate surface of a master substrate 101 with light. The reflecting member 11 reflects the light from the light source unit reflected on the substrate surface of the master substrate 101 and guides the light again to the substrate surface side to form a second interference fringe. A resist pattern based on the first interference fringe and the second interference fringe is formed on the substrate surface of the master substrate 101.