Thomas Kruecken

Physical properties of the HCT EUV source

The paper describes recent progress on the development of an EUV source based on a hollow cathode triggered gas discharge (HCT). The principle of operation has been described in previous publications. When operated with Xe, a repetition frequency up to 4 kHz, conversion efficiency of 0.55% inband radiation in 2π and a pinch size below 3mm in length was demonstrated. Todays requirements on a commercial EUV source for volume production of wafers still exceed the current performance by large factors both in terms of output power and life time. This paper will discuss the roadmap to high power and will also show elements of the way to extended life time. Particular focus will be put onto the physical limits of Xe as radiator and the advantages of using Sn instead. It will be demonstrated that the spectral efficiency of Sn is a factor of 3 higher than Xe.

Understanding HID lamp properties

Light sources represent the input quantity for all design processes of projection and illumination systems and often there are features of the light source that are unsatisfying in the optical engineers view. However, just as the design of an optical system may be understood and improved with the help of modeling tools, the development of a light source may also greatly benefit from physical models of the discharge. This paper tries to provide a basic understanding on how HID lamps work and how they can be modeled. This covers the major processes within the plasma discharge as well as the heat balance of the discharge within the burner and in particular the influence of the burner shape on the discharge behavior. Questions concerning the arc shape or the presence of a liquid melt at certain areas of the burner wall which are of vital interest to the optical designer will be addressed together with an assessment of the possibilities to influence these phenomena. Finally, a discussion on how and to which degree of reliability light technical properties can be obtained from a lamp model is presented.

Status of Philips' extreme UV source

The paper describes progress of the Philips’ hollow cathode triggered (HCT) gas discharge EUV source. The program has been focussed on three major areas: (1) Studying the basic physics of ignition, pinch formation and EUV generation. The paper reports on progress in this area and particularly describes the underlying atomic physics both for Xe and Sn. (2) Discharge based on Sn. Results on overall efficiency more than 5 times the Xe efficiency are reported as well as high frequency operation up to 6.5 kHz. This system shows all the necessary ingredients for scaling to production power levels. (3) Integration of the Xe source in an alpha tool. Results on integration issues like electrode life time, collector life time and dose control will be presented.

Discharge plasmas as EUV Sources for Future Micro Lithography

Future extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography will require very high radiation intensities in a narrow wavelength range around 13.5 nm, which is most efficiently emitted as line radiation by highly ionized heavy particles. Currently the most intense EUV sources are based on xenon or tin gas discharges. After having investigated the limits of a hollow cathode triggered xenon pinch discharge Philips Extreme UV favors a laser triggered tin vacuum spark discharge. Plasma and radiation properties of these highly transient discharges will be compared. Besides simple MHD‐models the ADAS software package has been used to generate important atomic and spectral data of the relevant ion stages. To compute excitation and radiation properties, collisional radiative equilibria of individual ion stages are computed. For many lines opacity effects cannot be neglected. In the xenon discharges the optical depths allow for a treatment based on escape factors. Due to the rapid change of plasma parameters the abundancies of th...

Plasma and Radiation Modelling of EUV Sources for Micro Lithography

Future extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography will require very high radiation intensities in a narrow wavelength range around 13.5 nm, which is most efficiently emitted as line radiation by highly ionized heavy particles. Currently the most intense EUV sources are based on Xenon or Tin discharges. After having investigated the limits of a hollow cathode triggered Xenon pinch discharge a Laser triggered Tin vacuum spark discharge is favored by Philips Extreme UV.Plasma and radiation properties of these highly transient discharges will be compared. Besides simple MHD‐models the ADAS software package has been used to generate important atomic and spectral data of the relevant ion stages. To compute excitation and radiation properties, collisional radiative equilibria of individual ion stages are computed. For many lines opacity effects cannot be neglected. The optical depths, however, allow for a treatment based on escape factors. Due to the rapid change of plasma parameters the abundances of the different i...