Overview

• fabricates nanostructures and develops measurement techniques for determining their electronic and magnetic properties. A key facility supporting this work is the Nanoscale Physics Laboratory (NPL), described below, which was brought online in July 2000, after several years of design and construction. The core tool of the NPL is a cryogenic scanning tunneling microscope (STM), designed and built within the Division, which has picometer spatial resolution and can operate in magnetic fields as high as 10 Tesla. Another key measurement capability of long standing within the Division is scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis (SEMPA), which provides submicrometer resolution of magnetic structures via analysis of the spins of ejected electrons. Our SEMPA laboratory was upgraded this year with a new field-emission scanning electron microscope that can attain 10 nm spatial resolution, the highest available anywhere. This capability underpins the Division's drive to develop metrology for the next generation of magnetic data storage devices.

SEMPA images: SEMPA images of the magnetization in patterned Fe thin-film discs and rings. The rings are ten micrometers in diameter and the magnetizations direction are mapped into color as given by the color wheel.

• provides the central national basis for absolute radiometry in the deep-ultraviolet (DUV) and extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, which together span the photon energy range of 5 eV to 250 eV. This basis is maintained through a combination of ionization chambers, calibrated transfer standard detectors, and an electron storage ring, the Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility (SURF III), which provides a dedicated source of radiation over this spectral range. As an absolutely calculable source, SURF III is being developed as the primary national standard of source-based radiometry from the EUV through the infrared spectral regions. It also supports a range of research activities by members of the Division, other NIST organizational units, and external customers.

• develops metrology and fabrication capabilities for EUV optical components and systems. EUV optics, which deal with "light" of 10 nm wavelength, are favored for possible application in next-generation semiconductor lithography. The Division works closely with the leading industrial efforts in this field. In July 2000, we took delivery of a 5000 kg vacuum chamber, housing a reflectometer capable of measuring the massive (45 kg) mirrors that will be used in an alpha-tool EUV stepper. This chamber was connected to the Division's SURF III synchrotron radiation source in December 2000, and performed its first mirror measurements in the Spring of 2001. By virtue of its operating wavelength, EUV Optics is intrinsically a nanoscale technical discipline. It requires nanometer accuracy of optical figures over macroscopic dimensions, and fabrication of multilayer structures with near-atomic sharpness of interfaces. During the past decade, the Division has developed a range of metrologies for use by the EUV optics community, and has provided NIST calibration services for EUV optical components used in lithography, solar and stellar astronomy, synchrotron radiation research, and EUV laser sources.