OPTION 1: Small-Business ERC Collaborative Opportunity for the Commercialization of an Extreme Ultraviolet source at 13 nm for EUV lithography tool inspection

选项 1：用于 EUV 光刻工具检查的 13 nm 极紫外光源商业化的小型企业 ERC 合作机会

• 批准号: 1347407
• 负责人: Xiaoshi Zhang
• 金额: $ 19.99万
• 依托单位: KAPTEYN-MURNANE LABORATORIES, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fixed Amount Award
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-03-01 至 2016-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1347407&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: OPTION; Small; Business; ERC; Collaborative

Overview:In this project, KMlabs will work with the currently active ERC in EUV Science and Technologyin an effort to optimize and commercialize a tabletop coherent extreme ultraviolet sourcebased on high-order harmonic generation (HHG), targeted specifically for 13.5 nm wavelength.The end goal of this project is to produce a commercial prototype that can produce efficient13.5 nm light to support EUV lithography tool development. Such a small-scale laser sourcecan be used for a variety of lithography support applications including optics characterization,metrology, and mask inspection, which can help to ensure the rapid deployment of this criticaltechnology, currently planned for ~2015.Intellectual Merit :CU-Boulder, as a part of the EUV ERC, has been developing coherent EUV technology for morethan a decade. Their recent work has led to a more comprehensive understanding of how to optimizethe HHG upconversion process to generate EUV or x-ray light at a particular target wavelength.This for the first time allows us to identify specific approaches that may allow for significant(up to 3 orders of magnitude) increases in coherent flux capability at 13 nm.KMlabs has proven track of record for successfully commercializing cutting edge scientificresults?for example the eXtreme Ultraviolet Ultrafast Source (XUUS), introduced in 2009. TheXUUS is a broadband coherent ultrafast EUV source optimized to generate 30 nm light, and 15XUUS setups have been delivered to research customers worldwide. Optimization of this sourcefor 13 nm will make it possible to address a much greater range of industry needs. We haveidentified three possible approaches for optimizing 13 nm flux. In this project we plan toperform a direct comparative evaluation of these approaches. Based on our physical understanding,we believe we can determine the global optimum for HHG conversion to 13 nm.Broader Impacts :KMlabs and the EUV ERC will each leverage their technical strengths, and this project willserve to leverage the impact of EUV ERC technology on the science and technology enterprise.The rapid advance of microelectronics technology, as described by Moore?s law, has been amajor driver of the global economy. This advance has been driven primarily by progress inlithography that allows for shrinking feature size. Current visible wavelength tools are strainingagainst fundamental limits, and the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors hasbeen anticipated a shift to EUV lithography for quite some time. The timeline for EUV hadrepeatedly experienced delays because the use of EUV light, which is strongly absorbed byall materials, is radically more difficult to work with than visible/UV.Nevertheless, recent progress in 13 nm EUV light sources for lithographic exposure has madeits adoption for the 22 nm node-size in the next generation computer chips a high priority.EUV lithography remains untested at the systems and large-scale production level, with manyunknowns. Improved capabilities for mask defect detection and characterization, for characterizingoptics degradation with long-term use, and for tasks such as alignment and quality control,can all benefit from a usable tabletop at-wavelength laser source. An HHG-based coherent 13nm EUV light source is a relatively low cost, small-scale, contamination-free coherent sourcesuitable for industrial application, and which has already been proven to enable new capabilitiessuch as coherent diffractive EUV imaging with near-wavelength resolution, and for materialscharacterization. KMlabs plans to build on this proposed work in future with development ofreflectometer/ellipsometer instruments, as well as an inspection microscope for EUV lithographyapplications.

Overview:In this project, KMlabs will work with the currently active ERC in EUV Science and Technologyin an effort to optimize and commercialize a tabletop coherent extreme ultraviolet sourcebased on high-order harmonic generation (HHG), targeted specifically for 13.5 nm wavelength.The end goal of this project is to produce a commercial prototype that can produce efficient13.5 nm light to support EUV lithography tool development. Such a small-scale laser sourcecan be used for a variety of lithography support applications including optics characterization,metrology, and mask inspection, which can help to ensure the rapid deployment of this criticaltechnology, currently planned for ~2015.Intellectual Merit :CU-Boulder, as a part of the EUV ERC, has been developing coherent EUV technology for morethan a decade.他们最近的工作导致对如何在特定目标波长处产生EUV或X射线光的方式进行更全面的了解。这首次使我们能够确定特定的方法，这些方法可实现13 nmm.kmlabs的相干能力，以提高相干能力，以促进超大的范围（最多3个范围的范围）？ Ultrafast Source（XUUS）于2009年推出。Thexuus是一款优化的宽带连贯的超快EUV源，可生成30 nm的光线，并已将15xuus设置交付给全球研究客户。该来源的13 nm的优化将使满足更大范围的行业需求成为可能。我们已经识别了优化13 nm通量的三种可能方法。在这个项目中，我们计划对这些方法进行直接比较评估。基于我们的身体理解，我们相信我们可以确定HHG转化为13 nm.Boader的影响：KMLABS和EUV ERC将每个人都将各自利用其技术优势，并且该项目将保留EUV ERC技术对科学和技术企业的影响。这一进步主要是由进度插入术驱动的，允许缩小特征大小。当前的可见波长工具是紧张的基本限制，半导体的国际技术路线图HOSBEEN预计将在相当长的一段时间内转移到EUV光刻。 EUV徒劳地进行延迟的时间表，因为使用强烈吸收的Byall材料的EUV光比可见的/UV。不及格，在13 nm EUV光电源中的最新进展更加困难许多人。掩盖缺陷检测和表征的提高功能，用于长期使用表征降解的功能，以及诸如对齐和质量控制之类的任务，都可以从可用的桌面At Wavelength Laser激光源中受益。基于HHG的连贯13NM EUV光源是一种相对较低的成本，适用于工业应用的小规模，无污染的相干来源，并且已经被证明可以使新的Capabilitiesuch作为连贯的衍射EUV成像，并具有接近波长的分辨率，以及用于材料的材料。 KMLABS计划通过开发Fefrectometer/椭圆机器的开发以及EUV光刻应用的检查显微镜，将来以这项拟议的工作为基础。