Our Founders
Rudi Hendel
President
Dr. Rudi Hendel grew up in Germany, receiving his Vordiplom in Physics from the University of Stuttart, Germany, followed by a Ph.D. in Low Temperature Solid State Physics from the University of Oregon.
For several years, Rudi was a member of technical staff (MTS) at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill working on HEMT Transistors and circuits. As one of the founders of GAIN Electronics, he worked on developing GaAs based gate Arrays.
Rudi then transitioned into building Semiconductor Equipment. He first joined SONY-MRC and later Applied Materials. Rudi left Applied Materials to start Periodic Structures, Inc. (PSI) with John Peterson and Dave Markle. PSI was supported by DARPA.
In 2014, Rudi established LithOptek LLC with Dr. Mark Schattenburg in order to realize innovative solutions to challenging problems in semiconductor processes. He brings a wealth of semiconductor business accumen and leadership to the LithOptek mangement team.
Mark Schattenburg
Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Mark Schattenburg co-founded LithOptek in 2014 with former Applied Materials executive Rudi Hendel in order to bring innovative technologies for CD control to the semiconductor industry.
In 2005, Mark also co-founded Plymouth Grating Laboratory (PGL, Inc.) which uses a unique MIT invented scanning lithography tool the Nanoruler to perform high precision patterning on meter-scale substrates for applications including high power laser pulse compression, laser fusion energy, and precision stage metrology applications. PGL, Inc. produces some of the highest quality diffraction gratings available today.
For the last four decades, Mark has directed the Space Nanotechnology Lab at MIT, which uses advanced nanofabrication techniques to produce instrumentation for NASA space missions. He is a leading authority on grating fabrication and his team has fabricated gratings for nine NASA fight missions with several more in progress. His team works closely with both the MIT.Nano and MIT Lincoln Laboratory organizations.
The core of Mark's career has been conducting and directing advanced lithography research. This work has been specifically focused on the numerous aspects of nanopaterning including mask fabrication, image formation and pattern transfer technologies. He is the co-inventor of the attenuated phase shift mask (U.S. patent 4,890,309) which holds greater than 90% market share in advanced semiconductor masks. For this invention he was awarded the SPIE BACUS prize in 2003. He is a Fellow of the American Optical Society and a member of the American Society for Precision Engineering and the American Vacuum Society.
At MIT, Mark has supervised, co-supervised, or sat on the thesis committees for 28 Ph.D. and 17 Master’s degree students. He has published over 283 papers, and holds twelve patents. He received his Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1984.