Intense EUV incoherent plasma sources for EUV lithography and otherapplications

摘要

Intense visible and ultraviolet sources, both incoherent andncoherent, have been used in a variety of commercial applications overnthe years. Perhaps two of the most far-reaching applications are in thenareas of microlithography and materials processing. In microlithography,nthe mercury vapor discharge lamp has provided the illuminating flux fornmicrolithography machines for over 20 years. More recently, excimernlasers are playing an increasing role in this field. In materialsnprocessing, because of flux requirements that will be discussed later,nsources have been largely restricted to lasers. The available lasersncover a wide range of wavelengths and pulse durations and have becomenmajor industrial tools for a broad spectrum of applications. This papernwill point out the role that intense extreme ultraviolet incoherentn(nonlaser) sources might play in the future, in that they may be able tonprovide similar intensities to those presently provided only by lasers,nbut in a much simpler, more efficient way and, in semi systems, at anpotentially much lower cost