Abstract: For producing an exposure pattern on a curved, in particular concave substrate field of a substrate which comprises a layer of resist material sensitive to exposure to an energetic radiation, in a pattern transfer system a wide, substantially parallel beam of said energetic radiation is produced, and by means of said beam a planar mask having a structure pattern, namely, a set of transparent windows to form a structured beam, is illuminated and the structure pattern is imaged onto the substrate by means of the structured beam, producing a pattern image, namely, a spatial distribution of irradiation over the substrate.

Abstract: For lithographic patterning a plurality of identical structures (24) onto a target substrate (14), a template mask (13) is produced which bears a template structure pattern comprising a plurality of identical template structures each consisting of a set of at least one structure element (C) of circular shape. Starting from a primary mask (11) bearing a primary structure pattern consisting of at least one structure element having a circular shape, the production of the template mask is done in at least one lithographic mask structuring step (b, c) wherein in each mask structuring step by means of a broad beam (31) of energetic radiation the mask is illuminated and a structure pattern on the mask (11,12) is imaged onto an intermediate substrate (12a,13a); in these mask structuring steps the pattern image imaged from the structure pattern is moved over the intermediate substrate to a number of different locations.

Abstract: A method for producing a carbon film on a substrate, comprising the steps of (a) depositing a carbon layer of a predetermined thickness onto the substrate, e.g. using off-axis sputtering, the carbon layer having predominantly graphitic or amorphous structure, and (b) treating the carbon layer by means of an radio-frequency discharge in a helium atmosphere wherein the substrate is held at a negative dc bias voltage of a preselected value, where the thickness of the carbon layer deposited in step a) is chosen not greater than the longitudinal stop range of the helium ions corresponding to the bias voltage used in step b). After producing a first carbon layer of a predetermined thickness, a next carbon layer is likewise produced upon the first carbon layer and the procedure can be repeated until the total thickness of the layers attains a desired final thickness.

Abstract: A method for depositing carbon films on membranes used in masks for X-ray or corpuscular projection, e.g. electron or ion beam, lithography is proposed in which sputtering is used and the membranes serving as sputter substrates are positioned in the off-axis configuration relative to the sputter targets. The carbon films thus produced have a compressive stress of the order of 10 MPa or below. For modifying the properties of carbon films after deposition, e.g. the deactivation of chemically reactive sites or stabilization of stress, ion bombardment with helium ions can be employed. This method anticipates changes in the film due to initial irradiation and serves to reach a plateau in which the stress varies only a little, i.e. within about 1 MPa or less.