The SPIE Frits Zernike Award for Microlithography is presented for outstanding accomplishments in microlithographic technology, especially those furthering the development of semiconductor lithographic imaging and patterning solutions. Honorarium $2,000.
Frits Zernike (July 16, 1888 - March 10, 1966) was a Dutch chemist, physicist and mathematician who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1953 for his invention of the phase-contrast microscope. He discovered that ghost lines that occur to the left and right of each primary line in spectra created by means of a diffraction grating, have their phase shifted from that of the primary line by 90 degrees, leading to his phase contrast technique in microscopy. His orthogonal circle polynomials provided a solution to the optimum 'balancing' problem of aberrations in optical instruments.