Photolithography

Photolithography can generally be referred to as the application of light to the process of writing/drawing patterns (i.e. lithography). To perform photolithography, one must have a photosensitive substrate and a method of producing patterns in the form of light (e.g. shadows) for use causing a chemical reaction to occur in the substrate which allows for hardening or softening (see positive vs negative photoresist below) of the photoresist such that the part which is not hardened may be gently washed away by a passing stream of liquid which can dissolve the unhardened photoresist and carry it away. Typically after this step is the etching step, by which some means of etching of the substrate underneath the photoresist is done (e.g. by chemical means, or by other means such as plasma etching or laser ablation). Often performed after the process of photolithography are other processes which may take advantage of these newly etched patterns for the construction of useful devices like MEMS devices or electronics.

Photolithography can be used in many applications, however its arguably most famous role is in the development of computer chips.

Uses

Lists( to be cleaned up later):

Manufacturing of: computer chips, solar panels, MEMS devices (e.g. accelerometers), microfluidics (e.g. testing for presence of virus and/or bacteria)

Process

For more details on the chemical processes, please see the page Chemistry of photolithography.