Establishing an X-Ray Lithography capability at CSIRO

The construction of the Australian synchrotron provides a unique opportunity to exploit many exciting fields of science, including the possibility to fabricate objects by means of soft X-ray lithography (XRL). Soft XRL is able to faithfully replicate objects with critical sizes down to few tens of nanometers, with high accuracy and high throughput. Furthermore, the fabrication of soft XRL mask is a one-step process, which compares against the two- or three- steps process needed for LIGA masks. This work reports on the developments carried out at CSIRO Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology in terms of XRL mask fabrication technology by means of electron beam lithography. These masks have been field-tested on the LILIT beamline, Elettra Synchrotron Light Source (Italy). The design of a soft-XRL beamline for the Australian synchrotron is also presented