Laboratory for Micro and Nanotechnology (LMN)
LMN is dedicated to fundamental and applied research with a focus on:
- Outstanding nanoscience by exploiting the synergies between advanced micro/nanofabrication and PSI’s large scale facilities, in particular the Swiss Light Source (SLS)
- Enabling innovations in instrumentation (optics, detectors, diagnostics etc.) for large scale facilities by applying nanotechnology
- Providing advanced micro- and nanofabrication technologies to academic and industrial users, in particular in the area of polymer nanotechnology.
Latest Scientific Highlights
World Record: 7 nm Resolution in Scanning Soft X-ray Microscopy
During the past decade, scientists have put high effort to achieve sub-10 nm resolution in X-ray microscopy. Recent developments in high-resolution lithography-based diffractive optics, combined with the extreme stability and precision of the PolLux and HERMES scanning X-ray microscopes, resulted now in a so far unreached resolution of seven nanometers in scanning soft X-ray microscopy. Utilizing this highly precise microscopy technique with the X-ray magnetic circular dichroism effect, dimensionality effects in an ensemble of interacting magnetic nanoparticles can be revealed.
Finalist of the Photronics Best Student Award
Ricarda Nebling, PhD student at LMN, received a prize at the SPIE Extreme Ultraviolet Conference 2020 for her contribution: “Effects of the illumination NA on EUV mask inspection with coherent diffraction imaging”.
Two-color snapshots of ultrafast charge and spin dynamics
In a joint research effort, an international team of scientists lead by Emmanuelle Jal (Sorbonne Université) performed a time-resolved experiment at the FERMI free-electron laser to disclose the dynamic behavior of two magnetic element of a compount material in only one snapshot. The X-ray Optics and Applications group developed a dedicated optical element for this experiment that is usable with two different photon energies (colors) simultaneously.
Latest News
New group member
Iuliia Bykova officially joins the group X-ray Optics and Applications as Post-Doc. We wish her every success.
Installation of Heidelberg DWL66+
Heidelberg DWL66+ direct laser writer, funded by ANAXAM, is in operation now. It is a new photolithographic system closing the gap between the mask aligners on one side and the Nanoscribe two-photon 3D lithography system on the other. It is equipped with semiconductor laser with the wave length of 405 nm and is capable of exposing the minimum feature size down to 0.3 µm on wafers up to 200 mm or 9"x9" mask blanks.
Installation of SPTS Rapier Deep Reactive Ion Etcher
SPTS Rapier system for Si deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) is released for user operation. The system is acquired by PSI as a part of SNF R’Equip project “Advanced Si DRIE tool for highly uniform ultra-deep structuring (SiDRY)”. This versatile tool is equipped with pulsed bias option and sensitive ClaritasTM optical end point detection system. Electrostatic clamping and wafer edge protection systems are both available for three wafer diameters – 100 mm, 150 mm, and 200 mm.