The manufacture of integrated circuits and opto-electronic devices, for example, calls for accuracies in the nanometer range (approximately three atomic lattice spacings). This book, written by leading researchers in Japan, examines the technology and systems needed to achieve this level of accuracy. The underlying concept of nanotechnology systems comes from the prediction that the extremely high accuracy required in materials processing will ultimately reach the order of 1nm (nanometer). Since the distance between lattice atoms is about 0.3nm, this constitutes the limit in resolution for...