Holographic lithography technology based on lensless coding

Projection lithography currently faces numerous challenges, such as resolution limitations imposed by optical diffraction, difficulties in manufacturing high numerical aperture (NA) projection lenses, and high costs arising from the complex system structure. These factors collectively contribute to the development bottleneck encountered by projection lithography. To overcome these challenges, we proposed a novel holographic lithography technique based on lensless coding, which theoretically enables exposure resolution beyond the optical diffraction limit directly through holographic masks. In the proposed method, a Fourier holographic mask is designed to record higher information density through the calculating and quantization processing of the quasi-Fourier computer-generated hologram (QF-CGH). During the exposure process, the converging spherical wave is employed to illuminate the Fourier holographic mask, directly reconstructing high-resolution target pattern. Furthermore, we have designed a corresponding holographic lithography system with a simple overall structure, which can significantly reduce construction costs. Numerical simulation results confirm the feasibility of the proposed method. This work may pave a new avenue for high-resolution and low-cost lithography.