This issue contains the first special section of
JM3. We are excited about it. Our senior editor Bill Arnold is mainly responsible for putting together the twelve papers for this special section. His introduction portrays the technology environment that leads to the topics of this special section and shows the relevance of the papers and their mutual relationship.
We will be featuring special sections from time to time to address special topics of interest in the microlithography, microfabrication, and microsystems fields. A special section on “Surface Micromachining” is planned for July 2003, followed by one on “Micro-Optics for Photonic Networks” in October 2003. You are encouraged to contribute to the latter. There is not much time left—the manuscript has to reach us within the next two months in order to go through the review and revision process properly. See the Call for Papers in this issue.
The reasons for special sections are quite clear. In addition to addressing pressing topics of vast interest, special sections help to shape the quality and the content of a journal, especially in the early days. Potential authors tend to look at the content of the existing issues of a journal to decide where to send their manuscripts. We envision that the papers in the special sections would stimulate many more submissions of similar caliber and substance, and even better ones.
In addition to the twelve special section papers, there are three regular papers in this issue. Incidentally, the subject matter of these papers coincides very well with the special section topic. The paper by Chou et al.; on a customized illumination aperture filter describes a resolution enhancement technique just as the three special section papers on liquid immersion, chromeless phase lithography, and phase shifting lithography by Switkes and Rothschild, Van Den Broeke et al.;, and Tyrrell et al.;, respectively. The paper by Inoue et al.; addresses photomask technology just as the special section paper on photomask scattering by Adam and Neureuther. The paper by Miura et al.; deals with an electron beam projection lithography system that has the potential to become the imaging system for sub-100-nm device fabrication. The special section paper by Resnick et al.; on step-and-flash imprint lithography is on an alternative imaging system also for sub-100-nm device fabrication.
In addition to the special section, we are also excited about the continued growth of this journal. The second issue had a 38 increase in the number of papers. Now, this third issue has grown 88 from the inaugural issue. There are now nearly 1200 subscribers. The number of subscribers is large for a new journal. I would like to thank the authors, reviewers, editors, and the entire editorial staff for their help in making this happen, especially with the increased load of the special section.
Happy reading! Diligent writing!
