Our team is engaged in microlithography technology research with usage of record by an electron-beam writer. Our work is focused on structures prepared in thin layers either of metals or dielectrics deposited on silicon wafers for different types of sensors. As for optical applications we design large area microstructures to shape the laser beam and diffraction structures for using in industrial holography.

Fundamental part of research is a solution of exposure control software with respect to processing a large amount of data. One partial solution is the data modelling, the data simulation and parameter optimisation of designed structures and their design simplification.

It is also necessary to minimize unwanted device characteristics e.g. proximity effect, structure dimensions distortion due to aberration or thermal drifts. Electron –beam writer is a recording device with a very high resolution (the resolution compared with a high quality laser printer, is some thousand times better). The structures for light beam shaping are one the interesting applications. Although the tiny structure is not visible, one can observe its manifestation when illuminated by a light beam.

We try to explain the principle of diffraction on simple optical diffractive structures (periodic gratings and general structures). The individual pictures have a similar scheme. The light beam is coming out from a monochromatic light source (e.g. a simple laser pointer in practice). The surface of individual structures is very finely modulated and the details have to be very tiny (approximately one thousandth of millimetre, thus one micrometer) to achieve a well observable diffraction. A writing device with a very high resolution is required for the preparation of such fine details, in our case it is an electron-beam writer.