18 Introduction: The optical nature of a charged particle beam

0.2Pm
Figure 1.10: Electron beam lithography patterns.
In summary, the inherent high resolution, together with the unique
interactivity with matter thus constitute two fundamental advantages of charged particle beams. They make charged particle
beams indispensible to science and technology on the nanometer
scale of dimensions. With this introduction, we are now in a position to begin our analytical study in detail.