University of Bath Installs Eulitha’s Photolithography System

Lithography startup Eulitha AG has installed one of its PhableR 100 photolithography systems at the University of Bath, England. The university purchased the system as part of a comprehensive research program designed to develop advanced manufacturing techniques for nanoengineered semiconductors, particularly GaN.

The University of Bath is the only U.K. university to house Eulitha's nanoscale patterning system, PhableR 100. Courtesy of the University of Bath.

The III-nitride research group at the University of Bath has been using nanolithography for several years in its research to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used for general lighting. The semiconductor GaN is key to this technology, and the research group said it will use the new system to accelerate its research into nanoengineered LEDs.

Creating 3D structures at the nanoscale provides a route to improving the quality of these materials and in turn the performance of these devices. Ultimately this will increase the energy efficiency in these and other emerging applications, such as water purification, where UV-LEDs are used to prevent viruses from reproducing.

The PhableR 100 exposure tool incorporates Eulitha’s proprietary Displacement Talbot Lithography technology that enables robust printing of very-high-resolution periodic patterns at low-cost. Eulitha said the the system was chosen for its ability pattern large areas — up to 100 mm in diameter — with high fidelity in a very simple way, and that its capabilities will be compared with another low-cost patterning technique, nanoimprint lithography, as part of the research.

The PhableR 100 exposes periodic patterns down to feature sizes below 150 nm. The focus-free imaging technology used by the system enables uniform printing on nonflat samples often found in photonic and optoelectronic sectors. Eulitha also recently announced the delivery of lithography systems to Twente University in the Netherlands and Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics in China.

Bath purchased the system under a five-year, £2.7 million (about $3.8 million) grant from the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of the council’s Manufacturing of Advanced Functional Materials funding program. For more information, visit www.manugan.org.

Eulitha AG is a spinoff company of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland. It specializes in the development of lithographic technologies for applications in optoelectronics and photonics.