Lithography apparatus using scanning tunneling microscopy
AssigneeOlympus Optical Co., Ltd.
InventorsTakao Okada, Hiroshi Kajimura
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Abstract
A lithography apparatus is provided with an SXM base, which has a plurality of cantilevers movably supporting probes at their free ends, respectively. The SXM base is secured to a mirror base by a support arm via inchworm devices, such that it faces a silicon wafer placed on a wafer stage. The silicon wafer has an alignment pattern formed thereon, while the SXM base has a reference alignment pattern formed thereon which is similar to the alignment pattern. A voltage is applied to the probes at a predetermined point of time under the control of a controller while a gas containing a film-forming material is being supplied onto the wafer, whereby the film-forming material is adsorbed in a desired portion of the surface of the wafer.
Claims16
A lithography apparatus for forming a pattern on a semi-finished wafer which has both a wafer alignment pattern and an IC pattern thereon, said lithography apparatus comprising:
- a wafer stage for holding the wafer;
- an SXM base having a plurality of cantilevers, each cantilever having a pointed probe at a free end thereof and each probe being movable at least in a two-dimensional direction, and said SXM base further having a reference alignment pattern for aligning itself with the wafer;
- alignment means for aligning the wafer and the SXM base with each other by optically detecting the wafer alignment pattern and the reference alignment pattern;
- means for moving the SXM base relative to the wafer stage in a three-dimensional directional;
- and
- pattern-forming means for causing the probes to form a fine pattern on the wafer.
A lithography method comprising:
- a photolithography step of optically forming a fine pattern on a wafer;
- and
- an SXM lithography step of modifying the fine pattern formed in said photolithography step by forming a further fine pattern on the wafer using a pointed probe held by an SXM base.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.