Maskless exposure device for photolithography

Abstract

Photolithography plays a consequential role in transferring patterns from photomasks to substrates and thereby is an important tool in semiconductor, IC, MEMS and many microstructures’ production. The photomasks are preprinted prior to the photolithographic procedure with certain layouts, and these layouts are transferred to surfaces of materials like silicon during the lithography and finally these surfaces undergo chemical processes by which three dimensional micro features are formed. Therefore photomasks containing specific layouts are the inevitable components in the entire procedure, but unfortunately those are expensive in its nature together with time consuming production formalities. Some of the successful attempts to remove these difficulties are cost effective photomasks and maskless lithography. A system named ‘Maskless Exposure Device’ (MED) is introduced here as my thesis related research and it is intended to replace the expensive photomasks. The device transfers images and layouts created on a computer, easily and effortlessly to different substrate surfaces and can be repeatedly used in photolithography by introducing new drawings on the computer screen and thereby, MED is nothing but a maskless lithographic technique. The device can be mainly used in research and development applications in MEMS production, microfluidic systems, semiconductor and biosensor designs, patterning of cell culture substrates, electrode structures etc. Research on design of microsensors and microactuators could be confronted extremely cost effectively with maximum time saving considerations.