Lithography

Lithography became an essential tool for materials research during the post-World War II computing revolution. Increasing computing power required shrinking circuits and packing transistors more tightly together. Lithography made it possible to write small, precise circuits on a semiconducting surface, setting the stage for modern computing and fueling Moore’s Law - the observation that transistor density on chips has tended to double every eighteen months. But lithography was by no means a postwar development. It dates to the late-eighteenth century and is notable as a technique borrowed for materials research from the storied and ostensibly distant craft practices of ink-based printing. What ties these disparate applications together - aside from their name - is their close relationship to the commercial incentives of the times in which they developed….