Optical lithography has been the engine that has empowered semiconductor industry to continually reduce the minimum feature size for over 50 years. Today, projection lithography steppers allow to manufacture sub-20nm structures with 2nm overlay accuracy on 300mm wafer scale in high volume production. Refractive and diffractive micro-optical components are used for laser beam shaping, pulse compression, homogenizing, overlay and image positions sensors, in phase-shift masks and in many high-end metrology tools.

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Bio

Dr. Reinhard Voelkel received his Diploma in Physics in 1989 and his PhD in 1994 from the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany, where he worked at the Applied Optics Institute (Prof. Adolf W. Lohmann and Prof. Johannes Schwider) on holographic optical elements for optical interconnects and backplanes.

After his PhD he joined the Institute of Microtechnology (Prof. René Dandliker and Prof. Hans Peter Herzig) at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, working on micro-optics for biosensors, optical interconnects, photolithography systems, miniaturized imaging and camera systems.

Reinhard Voelkel is the co-founder and CEO of SUSS MicroOptics SA, a leading supplier of micro-optical components and systems located in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He is a member of the German Optical Society (DGaO), the Swiss Optical Society (SSOM), the European Optical Society (EOS), SPIE and the Optical Society of America (OSA).