EUV LIGHT SOURCE USING CRYOGENIC DROPLET TARGETS IN MASK INSPECTION

• Main Authors: KHODYKIN, Oleg, BYKANOV, Alexander, WACK, Daniel, Christopher
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 25.01.2017
• Subjects: APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR; BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; CINEMATOGRAPHY; COLORIMETRY; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; MEASUREMENT OF INTENSITY, VELOCITY, SPECTRAL CONTENT,POLARISATION, PHASE OR PULSE CHARACTERISTICS OF INFRA-RED,VISIBLE OR ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT; MEASURING; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; PHOTOGRAPHY; PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES,e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTORDEVICES; PHYSICS; RADIATION PYROMETRY; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; TESTING; X-RAY TECHNIQUE

An apparatus for generating extreme ultra-violet (EUV) light, including a drive laser arranged to produce a laser pulse, a vacuum chamber, a set of focusing optics arranged to focus the laser pulse produced by the drive laser onto a target spot within the vacuum chamber, a target material generator arranged to deliver a series of droplets of a target material to the target spot by modulating a flow velocity of a supply of the target material through a nozzle tip and thereby inducing a formation process of the series of droplets which series of droplets from the nozzle tip are expelled through a triple point chamber, and a set of collector optics arranged to focus a quantity of EUV light generated when a droplet of the series of drople of the target material is exposed to the laser pulse at the target spot onto an intermediate focus spot.