BACUS Scholarship

The $5,000 SPIE-BACUS Scholarship recognizes outstanding contributions to the photomask industry that have at least one of the following attributes: a fundamental change or innovation, an enduring contribution, and/or an enabling contribution.

This scholarship is awarded to a full-time undergraduate or graduate student in the field of microlithography with an emphasis on optical tooling and/or semiconductor manufacturing technologies. 

The SPIE-BACUS Scholarship was set up in 1998 to reward the most qualified students who wish to work in the fields of photomask and microlithography manufacturing for the semiconductor industry. The BACUS Steering Committee, in concert with the SPIE Scholarship Committee, will work with institutions of higher learning to identify candidates and award scholarships to help prepare them to make significant contributions to industry.

For more information, contact: scholarships@spie.org.

The 2023 application is open. Apply by 30 June 2023.

Apply online

Current BACUS scholarship winner


Bin Wang

University of Colorado Boulder

Bin Wang is currently pursuing his PhD in physics at JILA, a joint institution of University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He is currently co-supervised by Professors Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn. Wang's research involves the development of computational EUV microscopes using tabletop high harmonic sources, with a focus on studying the geometric and chemical properties of semiconductor samples, including patterned wafters and EUV photomasks. As project leader, he is developing an EUV microscope for actinic inspection of EUV photomasks, which can address much-needed advances in EUV photomask techniques. Want has authored and co-authored more than twenty journal, conference, and patent publications.