I am interested in the interactions of light and matter on the nanoscale. In particular, I study short-wavelength, extreme-ultraviolet, soft x-ray, and x-ray optics, but don't discriminate on the basis of color. Fundamentally, I study ways to observe, measure, and control beams of light that are just a few atoms to a few hundred atoms wide; beams whose variation reveals the physical properties and shapes of surfaces.

I concentrate on advanced research and development related to photolithography, the process used to make semiconductor chips. Lenses focus light onto silicon wafers, where intricate patterns of bright and dark lines become the circuit patterns: the tiny wires and transistors that power all computers and modern electronics. With successive generations spanning the past 30 years, researchers develop ways to pack ever-smaller transistors onto faster-running chips.

Soon, companies will switch from deep ultraviolet light (193-nm wavelength) to EUV light, an invisible color with a dramatically shorter, 13-nm wavelength. The physics of light focusing holds that light with a smaller wavelength can be focused to a smaller size and used to draw narrower circuit-pattern lines. So shrinking from 193-nm to 13-nm, gives the industry room to shrink, as it were.

Yet there are still technical challenges to overcome and significant improvements to make: from basic materials research to improvements of the metrology or measurement techniques that enable all other developments. Read more about my research:

Interferometry & Optical Testing Creating the highest quality optical imaging systems.	EUV Actinic Mask Inspection Defect imaging through focus and scanning with EUV light.	Optical System Modeling Studying the nanoscale interactions of light and matter.	Advanced EUV Lithography High-resolution photoresist and reticle testing via printing.

My work is conducted in close collaboration with semiconductor industry sponsors, including SEMATECH and the EUV LLC, and in cooperation with scientists at LBNL, and other national laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories. I work with a diverse and talented group of optical and materials scientists, technicians, engineers, and nanofabrication specialists at the Center for X-Ray Optics, within LBNL's Materials Sciences Division.

To learn more about this research, please browse the publication list where a number papers are available, view slides from recent public presentations, or contact me. Wikipedia.org has entries for Photolithography and Interferometry.