EUV material interaction

 

EUV irradiation systems

EUV irradiation systems are realized at the chair TOS, which allow to expose novel materials from research and industry with defined irradiation doses. The setups differ in terms of the available intensity, the corresponding maximum exposure dose and the wavelength range used for exposure. The setups can be used to address various tasks:

1. Accelerated lifetime tests and general EUV radiation compatibility
2. Material modifications under EUV irradiation
3. Outgassing behavior of materials within vacuum and a gas atmosphere
4. Degradation and contamination studies of optical components

   

Using grazing incidence collectors, radiation emitted by the EUV source is collected under a solid angle as large as possible and focused on a sample. By means of suitable in-situ and ex-situ diagnostics, fundamental relationships of the EUV-material interaction are investigated. Setups without collector optics allow experimental investigations with collimated radiation as it is necessary e.g. for the determination of the scattering behavior of thin film membranes.

Several research topics are addressed in the group:

• Ongoing development of the experimental setup with respect to sample navigation, beam profile, and temperature stabilization
• Realization of different gas atmospheres for investigations of EUV-gas-material interaction for challenging metrological tasks
• Integration of in-situ measurement techniques on atomic measurement level (e.g. mass or photoelectron spectrometry)
• Integration of beam profiling and power diagnostics over a broad wavelength range

Areas of application are e.g. the qualification of novel absorber materials for the semiconductor industry, the generation of nitrogen-vacancy centers for quantum technologies or innovative approaches to resistless patterning for future nodes of microchip fabrication. There is always the possibility to do a bachelor and master theses to work on industry-relevant and fundamental research topics.