University of California

Asml Netherlands B.v.

Cymer, Inc.

William G Oldham

William N Partlo

Igor Vladimirovich Fomenkov

Alexander Igorevich Ershov

Richard L Sandstrom

Georgiy Olegovich Vaschenko

Oscar Hemberg

David Wayne Myers

William F Marx

Yijian Chen

Gregory O Vaschenko

Yashesh Shroff

A filter is used in a target material supply apparatus and includes a sheet having a first flat surface and a second opposing flat surface, and a plurality of through holes. The first flat surface is in fluid communication with a reservoir that holds a target mixture that includes a target material and non-target particles. The through holes extend from the second flat surface and are fluidly coupled at the second flat surface to an orifice of a nozzle. The sheet has a surface area that is exposed to the target mixture, the exposed surface area being at least a factor of one hundred less than an exposed surface area of a sintered filter having an equivalent transverse extent to that of the sheet.

Material supply apparatus for extreme ultraviolet light source having a filter constructed with a plurality of openings fluidly coupled to a plurality of through holes to remove non-target particles from the supply material

Filter for material supply apparatus of an extreme ultraviolet light source

A method and apparatus that may comprise an EUV light producing mechanism utilizing an EUV plasma source material comprising a material that will form an etching compound, which plasma source material produces EUV light in a band around a selected center wavelength comprising: an EUV plasma generation chamber; an EUV light collector contained within the chamber having a reflective surface containing at least one layer comprising a material that does not form an etching compound and/or forms a compound layer that does not significantly reduce the reflectivity of the reflective surface in the band; an etchant source gas contained within the chamber comprising an etchant source material with which the plasma source material forms an etching compound, which etching compound has a vapor pressure that will allow etching of the etching compound from the reflective surface. The etchant source material may comprises a halogen or halogen compound. The etchant source material may be selected based upon the etching being stimulated in the presence of photons of EUV light and/or DUV light and/or any excited energetic photons with sufficient energy to stimulate the etching of the plasma source material. The apparatus may further comprise an etching stimulation plasma generator providing an etching stimulation plasma in the working vicinity of the reflective surface; and the etchant source material may be selected based upon the etching being stimulated by an etching stimulation plasma. There may also be an ion accelerator accelerating ions toward the reflective surface. The ions may comprise etchant source material. The apparatus and method may comprise a part of an EUV production subsystem with an optical element to be etched of plasma source material.

EUV collector debris management

An EUV light source collector erosion mitigation method and apparatus for a collector comprising a multilayered mirror collector comprising a collector outer surface composed of a capping material subject to removal due to a removing interaction with materials created in an EUV light-creating plasma, is disclosed which may comprise including within an EUV plasma source material a replacement material. The replacement material may comprise the same material as the capping material of the multilayered mirror. The replacement material may comprise a material that is essentially transparent to light in a selected band of EUV light, e.g., a spectrum of EUV light generated in a plasma of a plasma source material. The replacement material may comprise a material not susceptible to being etched by an etching material used to remove deposited plasma source material from the collector, e.g., a halogen etchant.

EUV light source collector erosion mitigation

Disclosed is an actuator for a phase mirror array including a) a first support member extending perpendicularly from a surface of a mirror, b) a plurality of flexures engaging the first support member with the flexures being generally parallel to the surface of the mirror, c) second and third support members engaging opposing ends of the flexures, at least one of the second and third support members functioning as a first electrode, and d) a second electrode positioned in spaced parallel relationship with the flexures, whereby a voltage impressed across the first electrode and the second electrode causes displacement of the supported mirror on the support structure. The second electrode and one of the flexures can have undulating surfaces which mate in a comb relationship.

Double hidden flexure microactuator for phase mirror array

A train of coherent laser output pulses with reduced speckle is generated by providing laser pulses having a first polarization and a coherence length, splitting each pulse in the input laser pulses to provide a first pulse train including a first series of output pulses of the first polarization in output pulses and a second pulse train, and rotating polarization and delaying the second pulse train. The second pulse train is then split to provide a second series of output pulses having a different polarization than the first series of output pulses and a third series of output pulses having a delay length greater than the laser coherence length thereby providing a train of coherent laser output pulses including the first series of output pulses interleaved with the second series of output pulses and the third series of output pulses. The train of coherent laser output pulses can again be split and delayed with polarization rotation to generate a second train of coherent laser output pulses. To further reduce speckle in the generated train of coherent laser output pulses, the optics for delaying and rotating the polarization can be so arranged that each pulse in the train exits the system in a slightly different position and at a slight different angle whereby the speckle pattern produced by the interaction of the beam with scatterers is uncorrelated.

Method and means for reducing speckle in coherent laser pulses

Growing community of inventors

Orinda, CA, United States of America

William G Oldham