Experimental study on laser produced tin droplet plasma extreme ultraviolet light source

Abstract

Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL), which uses the extreme ultraviolet radiation at a wavelength of 13.5 nm, is the leading candidate of next generation lithography addressing not only the 10 nm half-pitch nodes, but several nodes beyond that. Among all the methods for getting EUV radiation, laser-produced plasma (LPP) light source is the most promising EUV light source because of its high conversion efficiency (CE), large collect angle and low debris output. In this paper, pulsed TEA-CO2 laser and Nd:YAG laser are used to irradiate tin droplets to obtain plasma EUV emission, and the properties of EUV radiation from the plasma are studied. Results show that the EUV emission spectra induced by Nd:YAG laser have an obvious blueshift as compared with those by CO2 laser. In addition, the LPP sources are point light sources, so that the angular distribution of EUV emission from LPP can be described by Lambertian distribution.