Patent ID: 8368871

Claim:
A lithographic method related to Talbot imaging for printing a desired pattern of features that is periodic or quasi-periodic in at least one direction onto a substrate surface, which method includes: a) providing a mask bearing a pattern of mask features that is periodic or quasi-periodic in at least one direction; b) arranging the substrate parallel and in proximity to the mask so that the substrate is at a distance from the mask; c) providing an illumination source and generating light having a central wavelength and a spectral bandwidth of wavelengths; d) forming from said light a beam for illuminating each point of the mask pattern with an extended angular distribution of intensity comprised of angular components so that each component for the individual illumination wavelengths forms Talbot images of the mask pattern, between whose successive planes is a range of lateral intensity distributions; and e) arranging the distance of the substrate from the mask and illuminating each point of the mask pattern with the angular distribution such that each angular component exposes the substrate to substantially the entire range of lateral intensity distributions, whereby the angular distribution forms a net image at the substrate that prints the desired pattern; wherein the extended angular distribution of the illumination beam is designed in conjunction with the pattern of features in the mask and the distance of the substrate from the mask by arranging that a convolution of, first a product of the angular distribution and the distance of the substrate from the mask with, secondly, a stationary image that would be formed from the mask pattern using one of achromatic Talbot lithography and displacement Talbot lithography corresponds to the net image.