The biannual SEMATECH Litho Forum was held May 12-14, 2008 in Bolton Landing, NY, not far from SEMATECH's facility at Albany Nanotech. This biannual meeting is designed to assess the progress in advanced patterning technology and to produce consensus about the processes that will be used to manufacture the next generations of devices. A summary of the key ideas presented at the meeting is given in this paper, along with the future challenges and opportunities in emerging lithographic technologies.

International audienceWe report the observation of the electric spontaneous polarization in YbFe 2 O 4 , one candidate " electronic ferroelectric, " where ferroelectricity originates from the polar charge order. Though we have proposed that in LuFe 2 O 4 polar charge ordering of iron ions having different valence states give rise to ferroelectricity, some reports questioned not only the electronic origin but also the existence of the ferroelectricity itself in this system. In response to this, we show a direct macroscopic evidence of the existence of the ferroelectricity by a clear P-E hysteresis loop of YbFe 2 O 4 belonging to the same system as that of LuFe 2 O 4. Although further investigations are required about the electronic origin, we report the direct observation of the macroscopic electric polarization

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