A zone-plate-focused soft X-ray microbeam was utilized for direct patterning of a monomolecular resist: aliphatic and aromatic self-assembled monolayers. The fabricated patterns were subsequently imaged and characterized by a scanning photoelectron microscope (SPEM) using the same microbeam as the excitation source. The observed contrasts could be explained in terms of specific beam-resist interactions. The spatial resolution of the X-ray patterning was about 0.5 µm, which was mostly determined by the current SPEM settings and can be noticeably improved.

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