The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 27, 2017
Filed:
Jun. 13, 2014
Kla-tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Guorong V. Zhuang, San Jose, CA (US);
Michael S. Bakeman, San Jose, CA (US);
Andrei V. Shchegrov, Campbell, CA (US);
Jonathan M. Madsen, Los Altos, CA (US);
KLA-Tencor Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
Methods and systems for realizing a high brightness liquid metal droplet based x-ray source suitable for high throughput x-ray metrology are presented herein. A high power laser bombards a solid target material to generate liquid metal droplets. The laser generated liquid metal droplets are excited with a focused, high power excitation beam such as an electron or laser beam. The excitation beam is synchronized with the stream of liquid metal droplets stimulated by the high power laser to achieve a stable x-ray emission generated by the excited liquid metal droplets. In some embodiments, x-ray optics are designed to efficiently collect and focus radiation within a desired emission band onto a measurement target. Reliability is improved by shielding the excitation source and the x-ray optics from the region of interaction between the excitation beam and the liquid metal droplet anode by a localized curtain of shielding gas.