Abstract: A method for compensation for the proximity effect in electron beam lithography on an e-beam resist material. The exposed surface of the resist material is subdivided into non-overlapping pixels of approximately equal area, with a first set of pixels representing a selected pattern for e-beam lithography and a second set of pixels including all other pixels. The cumulative exposure for each pixel in the first set is computed by adding to the direct beam exposure of that pixel the contributions of spillover (backscattering) exposure arising from exposure of nearby pixels in the second set. The cumulative exposure for each pixel in the second set is computed by adding to the reduced beam exposure of that pixel the contributions of spillover exposure arising from exposure of nearby pixels in the second set. The resist material is then irradiated, pixel-by-pixel with a fixed electron beam radius, with the exposure at each pixel being equal to the cumulative exposure computed for that pixel.

Abstract: A method to compensate for the E-beam proximity effect which includes a post exposure, pre-development baking of the photoresist layer. The baking of the photoresist layer causes a migration of small, photo-active compound (PAC) molecules to increase the size of peripheral exposed areas so as to compensate for the exposure size variations caused by the proximity effect.