Deep X-Ray Lithography (DXRL) is a manufacturing process by which a material, which changes its dissolution rate in a liquid solvent (developer) under high energy irradiation, is exposed through an X-ray mask to synchrotron radiation. The pattern of the mask is transferred to the material. This is possible by the availability of synchrotron radiation characterized by high resolution, high intensity and extreme parallelism .Microsctructures have been obtained with high spatial resolution (200nm for a wall thickness of 100 µm), high aspect ratios (up to 40), great structural heights (up to 3mm) and parallel edges.
 

Coupled with electrodeposition, casting, hot embossing, molding, or microelectroerosion (the so called LIGA process), it allows using a wide range of materials: plastics, metals and alloys, ceramics.Furthermore, due to the great variety of shapes that can be obtained, it becomes a very flexible tool for fabricating microdevices.
The beamline performs an irradiation of samples with controlled X-ray doses, allowing therefore material science studies and the fabrication of microdevices made of new materials like silica, titania..
Thus, DXRL is a key technique to fill the gap between the nano/bio scale (current target of cutting edge studies) and the macroscale, allowing manipulation and analysis of nano-sized objects. Moreover, the possibility to fabricate micromolds or microelectrodes for the production of small batches of microdevices, makes LIGA process suitable for industrial applications.