Recent work in Gabor x-ray holography has had a resolution limit imposed by the method used to extract the hologram information form the photoresist recording medium. In our case, we believe spiral distortions in the transmission electron microscope used for hologram readout limit resolution to 56 nm. To overcome this limitation we are building a scanning force microscope with a linear scanning stage offering < 20 nm resolution over a (70 micrometers X 70 micrometers ) field and a field linearity of 1 part in 10,000. A field linearity yielding one half or less pixel registration error across the scan is desirable so that the resulting hologram reconstruction is not significantly degraded. This desire for a large and linear scanning field necessitated designing our own stage since these conditions could not be met commercially. It is our goal to use this microscope to achieve higher resolution in reconstructed holograms. In addition, it should offer a means to explore at a macromolecular level the resolution limit of resists, such as PMMA. In this report we describe the technical strategy employed to meet these specifications.

Date Published: 13 January 1993
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 1741, Soft X-Ray Microscopy, (13 January 1993); doi: 10.1117/12.138734

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1741:
Soft X-Ray Microscopy
Chris J. Jacobsen; James E. Trebes, Editor(s)