About Us > Faculty & Staff > Faculty > Gregory Denbeaux Associate Professor of Nanoengineering

Watch Professor Denbeaux's "Inside CNSE" video interview on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography processes

Degrees:

• B.A., Physics, Wesleyan University, 1993
• M.A., Physics, Duke University, 1996
• Ph.D., Physics, Duke University, 1999

Areas of research:

• microscopy
• magnetic materials
• lithography
  

Research Description:

Professor Denbeaux's research focuses on high-resolution microscopy for lithography and magnetic materials. The likely next generation lithography technology for semiconductor manufacturing will be extreme ultraviolet lithography. This technology will have a dramatic reduction in wavelength to near 13 nm to provide a decrease in feature sizes for printing, but there are still some hurdles to be overcome before this technology will be implemented by semiconductor manufacturers. Some of those hurdles relate to the multilayer reflective surfaces used for the optics and the mask. Denbeaux's research focuses on high-resolution optical techniques to help gain a fundamental understanding of the printability of defects and patterns on masks for extreme ultraviolet lithography. This is done by using a microscope with 13 nm wavelength illumination to accurately "see" with high resolution what will actually be printed.

Denbeaux's research on magnetic materials focuses on nanometer-scale magnetism and magnetic recording. The magnetic storage density on commercial hard disk drives has been dropping by nearly a factor of two each year. This has led to magnetic features on the magnetic media approaching the grain size in the magnetic layer. Denbeaux's research is to study the interactions between the grains and the magnetic properties. The magnetic studies are done using an x-ray microscope and a contrast mechanism known as x-ray magnetic circular dichroism. This technique provides image resolution below 20 nm coupled with the ability to apply magnetic fields during imaging and the ability to directly determine the magnetization within each layer of a multilayer material.

Publications, patents:

S. Eisebitt, M. Lorgen, W. Eberhardt, J. Luning, J. Stohr, C.T. Rettner, O. Hellwig, E.E. Fullerton, G. Denbeaux
Polarization effects in coherent scattering from a magnetic specimen: Implications for x-ray holography, lensless, imaging, and correlation spectroscopy
Physical Review B, Vol. 68, No. 10, Article No. 104419, 2003

G. Denbeaux, P. Fischer, G. Schneider, J. Liddle, E. Anderson, A. Pearson, W. Chao, C. Larabell, M. Le Gros, D. Attwood
Full-field soft x-ray microscopy at the Advanced Light Source
Synchrotron Radiation News, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 16-21, 2003

G. Denbeaux, E. Anderson, B. Bates, W. Chao, J. Liddle, B. Harteneck, A. Pearson, F. Salmassi, G. Schneider, P. Fischer, T. Eimuller, S. Taylor, H. Chang, G. Kusinski
X-ray magnetic microscopy for correlations between magnetic domains and crystal structure
Journal de Physique IV, Vol. 104, p. 477, 2003

P. Fischer, T. Eimuller, G. Schutz, and G. Denbeaux
Imaging magnetic domain structures with soft X-ray microscopy
Structural Chemistry, vol. 14, pp. 39-47, 2003

G. Schneider, G. Denbeaux, E. Anderson, W. Bates, F. Salmassi, P. Nachimuthu, A. Pearson, D. Richardson, D. Hambach, N. Hoffmann, W. Hasse, and K. Hoffmann
Electromigration in integrated circuit interconnects studied by X-ray microscopy
Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section B-Beam Interactions with Materials & Atoms, vol. 199, pp. 469-474, 2003

P. Fischer, G. Denbeaux, T. Ono, T. Okuno, T. Eimuller, D. Goll, G. Schutz
Study of magnetic domains by magnetic soft x-ray transmission microscopy
Journal of Physics D, Vol. 35, p. 2391-2397, 2002

D. Attwood, Anderson, E., Denbeaux, G., Goldberg, K., Naulleau, P. Schneider, G.
Soft x-ray microscopy and EUV lithography: an update on imaging at 20-40 nm spatial resolution
American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings, vol. 641, pp. 461-8, 2002

M. Kohler, J. Zweck, G. Bayreuther, P. Fischer, G. Schutz, G. Denbeaux, and D. Attwood
Micromagnetic investigation of sub-100-nm magnetic domains in atomically stacked Fe(001)/Au(001) multilayers
Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, vol. 240, pp. 79-82, 2002

G. J. Kusinski, G. Thomas, G. Denbeaux, K. M. Krishnan, and B. D. Terris
Temperature and ion irradiation dependence of magnetic domains and microstructure in Co/Pt multilayers
Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 91, pp. 7541-7543, 2002

G. Schneider, G. Denbeaux, E. H. Anderson, B. Bates, A. Pearson, M. A. Meyer, E. Zschech, D. Hambach, and E. A. Stach
Dynamical x-ray microscopy investigation of electromigration in passivated inlaid Cu interconnect structures
Applied Physics Letters, vol. 81, pp. 2535-2537, 2002

G. Schneider, M. A. Meyer, G. Denbeaux, E. Anderson, B. Bates, A. Pearson, C. Knochel, D. Hambach, E. A. Stach, and E. Zschech
Electromigration in passivated Cu interconnects studied by transmission x-ray microscopy
Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B, vol. 20, pp. 3089-3094, 2002

G. Denbeaux, E. Anderson, W. Chao, T. Eimuller, L. Johnson, M. Kohler, C. Larabell, M. Legros, P. Fischer, A. Pearson, G. Schultz, D. Yager, and D. Attwood
Soft X-ray microscopy to 25 nm with applications to biology and magnetic materials
Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research Section a-Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment, vol. 467, pp. 841-844, 2001

G. Denbeaux, P. Fischer, G. Kusinski, M. Le Gros, A. Pearson, and D. Attwood
A full field transmission X-ray microscope as a tool for high-resolution magnetic imaging
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, vol. 37, pp. 2764-2766, 2001

T. Eimuller, P. Fischer, M. Kohler, M. Scholz, P. Guttmann, G. Denbeaux, S. Gluck, G. Bayreuther, G. Schmahl, D. Attwood, and G. Schutz
Transmission X-ray microscopy using X-ray magnetic circular dichroism
Applied Physics A (Materials Science Processing), vol. A73, pp. 697-701, 2001

P. Fischer, T. Eimuller, G. Schutz, G. Bayreuther, S. Tsunashima, N. Takagi, G. Denbeaux, and D. Attwood
Magnetic domains in nanostructured media studied with M-TXM
Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, vol. 8, pp. 325-327, 2001

P. Fischer, T. Eimuller, G. Schutz, M. Kohler, G. Bayreuther, G. Denbeaux, and D. Attwood
Study of in-plane magnetic domains with magnetic transmission x-ray microscopy
Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 89, pp. 7159-7161, 2001

J. B. Kortright, K. Sang-Koog, G. P. Denbeaux, G. Zeltzer, K. Takano, and E. E. Fullerton
Soft-x-ray small-angle scattering as a sensitive probe of magnetic and charge heterogeneity
Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics), vol. 64, pp. 092401/1-4, 2001

G. J. Kusinski, K. M. Krishnan, G. Denbeaux, G. Thomas, B. D. Terris, and D. Weller
Magnetic imaging of ion-irradiation patterned Co/Pt multilayers using complementary electron and photon probes
Applied Physics Letters, vol. 79, pp. 2211-13, 2001

W. Meyer-Ilse, D. Hamamoto, A. Nair, S. A. Lelievre, G. Denbeaux, L. Johnson, A. L. Pearson, D. Yager, M. A. Legros, and C. A. Larabell
High resolution protein localization using soft X-ray microscopy
Journal of Microscopy (Oxford), vol. 201, pp. 395-403, 2001