Electron-Beam Lithography (EBL) is a specialized technique for creating extremely fine patterns, required by the modern electronic circuits industry.

Derived from scanning electron microscopes (SEM), the technique consists of scanning a beam of electrons across a surface covered with a resist film sensitive to electrons. Under the action of the electron beam the resist undergoes structural changes. After development in a liquid solution, part of the resist is dissolved away. Solvents such as acetone and methylene chloride are used. The wafer can be further processed with etching or metallization procedures.

The advantage of using EBL is the very high precision, almost at atomic level, and flexibility. This technique works for a variety of materials and a plethora of patterns.

EBL has applications in the production of photo masks, in direct writing systems (e.g. integrated circuits) and in research of phenomena occurring at very small dimensions.

There are many different types of EBL systems on the market, from SEM and STEM conversion kits, to mask-writers, shaped spot systems and modern electron-beam projection devices.