Progress in soft x-ray nanolithography by advanced tools of inventive problem solving.

Focused X-ray beam induced deposition is a recently developed approach for fabrication of metallic nanostructures by selective activation of metal-organic precursors with the focused beam of a scanning transmission soft X-ray microscope. While a proof-of-concept has been successfully achieved, the current setup requires fundamental improvements to be competitive with other nanolithography tools. Tools from theory of inventive problem solving have been applied for an in-depth analysis of potential improvements and to generate ideas for a next-level setup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]