We investigated the fabrication of dense, high aspect ratio hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) nanostructures by 100 keV electron beam lithography. The samples were developed using a high contrast developer and supercritically dried in carbon dioxide. Dense gratings with line widths down to 25 nm were patterned in 500 nm-thick resist layers and semi-dense gratings with line widths down to 10 nm (40 nm pitch) were patterned in 250 nm-thick resist layers. The dense HSQ nanostructures were used as molds for gold electrodeposition, and the semi-dense HSQ gratings were iridium-coated by atomic layer deposition. We used these methods to produce Fresnel zone plates with extreme aspect ratio for scanning transmission x-ray microscopy that showed excellent performance at 1.0 keV photon energy.