Nanolithography

The term nanolithography is derived from the Greek words “nanos”, meaning dwarf; “lithos”, meaning rock or stone; and “graphein” meaning to write. Therefore the literal translation is "tiny writing on stone", however nowadays one understands something different whenever this term is associated with nanotech:

Nanolithography is the branch of nanotechnology concerned with the study and application of the nanofabrication of nanometer-scale structures, meaning nanopatterning with at least one lateral dimension between the size of an individual atom and approximately 100 nm. Nanolithography is used e.g. during the nanofabrication of leading-edge semiconductor integrated circuits (nanocircuitry), for nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) or for almost any other fundamental application across various scientific disciplines in nanoresearch. Contrasting to various other nanolithography methods used in nanoresearch such as

Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) uses a tightly focussed beam of electrons scanned over the surface of a substrate. Typically, electron beam lithography with ultra high resolution (UHR) is used at the very beginning of a multiple technique and a multiple step process in a top down approach in order to transfer the nanostructure into the substrate or subsequently build up a device in a layer by layer fashion. For nanolithography with ultra high resolution down to sub10nm feature sizes, complete dedicated e-beam writer systems or converted scanning electron microscopes (SEM) can be used. With the help of a design editor and a pattern generator, the electron beam is guided over the substrate surface, which is covered with electron beam sensitive resist such as PMMA, in order to generate a resist mask which then can be further used for nanopattern transfer.