A comparative study on the performance of a xenon capillary Z-pinch EUV lithography light source using a pinhole camera

摘要

A pinhole camera has been employed to study the performance of a xenon capillary Z-pinch extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography light source driven by different dI/dt discharge current pulses. The performance of the EUV source in terms of dimension, intensity, collection efficiency and stability was specifically investigated by varying the experimental conditions such as the supplying gas pressure and dI/dt of the discharge current. Specific features, such as ring shape ( annular profile) pinhole images and symmetrical and stable emission in the high dI/dt discharge current, have been observed or confirmed experimentally. Our results support the fact that the high dI/dt and short discharge currents have better EUV emission characteristics for EUV lithography compared with the low dI/dt discharge current.