Benchtop Semi-Automated Solid State Photolithography Tool

The cost of a lab-grade photolithography tool is typically of the order of tens of thousands of dollars, a prohibitive price for many organizations that wish to prototype the fabrication of nanostructures. The availability of a more cost-friendly implementation of photolithography is crucial to the research and development of new technologies in nanoscale devices. In this work, we built a scaled down simplified version of a patterning system, the benchtop photolithography tool, which is expected to replicate certain nanopatterning techniques for under $300 —a tiny fraction of the cost of a typical mask aligner. A semi-automated benchtop photolithography tool is designed, fabricated, and programmed for prototyping and for research purposes. We use a USB 32-Bit Whacker PIC32MX795 Development Board that drives a programmable touchscreen, a UV LED array, a shutter, and a UV sensor, allowing us to have the desired high precision UV exposure. The integration of a microcontroller to operate the peripheral components of the tool allows to automate the small-scale photolithography process.