The use of lithium fluoride ͑LiF͒ crystals and films as imaging detectors for EUV and soft-x-ray radiation is discussed. The EUV or soft-x-ray radiation can generate stable color centers, emitting in the visible spectral range an intense fluorescence from the exposed areas. The high dynamic response of the material to the received dose and the atomic scale of the color centers make this detector extremely interesting for imaging at a spatial resolution which can be much smaller than the light wavelength. Experimental results of contact microscopy imaging of test meshes demonstrate a resolution of the order of 400 nm. This high spatial resolution has been obtained in a wide field of view, up to several mm 2 . Images obtained on different biological samples, as well as an investigation of a soft x-ray laser beam are presented. The behavior of the generated color centers density as a function of the deposited x-ray dose and the advantages of this new diagnostic technique for both coherent and noncoherent EUV sources, compared with CCDs detectors, photographic films, and photoresists are discussed.

Taking the cue from experiments on actin growth on spherical beads, we formulate and solve a model problem describing the accretion of an incompressible elastic solid on a rigid sphere due to attachment of diffusing free particles. One of the peculiar characteristics of this problem is that accretion takes place on the interior surface that separates the body from its support rather than on its exterior surface, and hence is responsible for stress accumulation. Simultaneously, ablation takes place at the outer surface where material is removed from the body. As the body grows, mechanical effects associated with the build-up of stress and strain energy slow down accretion and promote ablation. Eventually, the system reaches a point where internal accretion is balanced by external ablation. The present study is concerned with this stationary regime called "treadmilling".The principal ingredients of our model are: a nonstandard choice of the reference configuration, which allows us to cope with the continually evolving material structure; and a driving force and a kinetic law for accretion/ablation that involves the difference in chemical potential, strain energy and the radial stress. By combining these ingredients we arrive at an algebraic system which governs the stationary treadmilling state. We establish the conditions under which this system has a solution and we show that this solution is unique. Moreover, by an asymptotic analysis we show that for small beads the thickness of the solid is proportional to the radius of the support and is strongly affected by the stiffness of the solid, whereas for large beads the stiffness of the solid is essentially irrelevant, the thickness being proportional to a characteristic length that depends on the parameters that govern diffusion and accretion kinetics.

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We have studied the feasibility of high-resolution laser interference lithography using a tabletop 46.9nm, 1.5ns Ar laser, combined with two different optical configurations based on a Lloyd’s mirror interferometer. Using one of these schemes we have encoded periodic grating structures with a half pitch of 42nm and a vertical modulation of 5nm on a commercial PMMA photoresist. Experiments performed with larger half-pitch structures and detailed theoretical calculations demonstrate the potentiality of producing periodic structures with a half-pitch resolution down to 20nm and a height of up to 60nm. The results can be of considerable interest for the development of a complete high-resolution lithographic process operating with the 47nm laser wavelength.