Photomask for Duke Biomedical Engineering

Today we filled an order for graduate student Shwetadwip Chowdhury and his research team (Jeff Chen et al) at the Biomedical Engineering department at Duke University for a custom mask design. They were looking for a grating mask to serve as the structured pattern for exploration of structured illumination microscopy for subdiffraction resolution imaging. The critical dimension (CD) of the grating needed to be 0.5um or less with uniformity of 10nm. Since the smallest CD we offer as a standard product in our store is 1um, they submitted an RFQ for a custom mask. We were able to offer the research team a mask with a 0.125um CD and 10nm CDU but the cost exceeded their budget. So instead we presented a solution with their desired CD but a relaxed uniformity (50nm) that was within their budget. Moreover, we laid out the mask for them in such a way that they get four desired rotations without rotating the mask, by simply translating in X and Y instead. You can take a look at the product in our store here and read more about the research here.

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