Sub-10nm lithography of resist on silicon with helium and neon gas field ionization sources

This article synthesizes the results of recent work wherein nanoscale resolution for resist-based lithography was obtained using the gas field ionization source. First, exposure species are compared in terms of resolution and exposure efficiency. Next, exposure efficiency is related to the state of the art in practical throughput. Then, the effect of shot noise on pattern fidelity is discussed. Finally, the phenomenon of non-Gaussian incident current-density distributions is introduced as a possible contribution to measured lithographic point-spread functions.