Development of EUV radiometry
Cooperation project with Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH continued
EUV lithography is an optical technology at a working wavelength of 13.5 nm, by means of which it will be possible to realize high-end semiconductor components in the near future. The driving forces of this technological development are the world leader on the lithography stepper market, ASML from the Netherlands, and its German partner for precision optics, Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH. PTB has maintained cooperation agreements on EUV radiometry with both companies for several years. Meanwhile, cooperation projects are being realized with basically all renowned representatives of the German and European supply industry in order to develop EUV lithography.
Besides the number of hours now amounting to more than 6000 per year, also the qualitative requirements placed on the measurements in EUV radiometry, which is performed in several shifts with synchrotron radiation at two beamlines at the electron storage rings BESSY II and Metrology Light Source (MLS) in BerlinAdlershof, are increasing. This is the reason why the original large-scale EUV reflectometer – which had been set up together with Carl Zeiss within the scope of a BMWi-funded project in the first years of the cooperation project – will, in the coming years, be replaced by a new system equipped with a hydrocarbon-free vacuum system and improved sample positioning. The setup of an EUV telescope system, with the aid of which the spatial resolution on the surface of the optical components shall be improved to approximately 10 µm, in contrast, is close to completion. This benefits especially the development of novel measurement procedures based on EUV reflectometry and scatterometry for the investigation of structured surfaces. Due to the short wavelength used, these procedures could in future complement or even replace optical scatterometry in structure measurements on semiconductor wafers.
Contact
Frank Scholze
Department 7.1 Radiometry with Synchrotron Radiation
Phone: +49 (0)30 3481-7120
frank.scholze(at)ptb.de
Scientific publication
V. Soltwisch, A. Haase, J. Wernecke, J. Probst, M. Schoengen, S. Burger, M. Krumrey, F. Scholze: Correlated dif-fuse x-ray scattering from periodically nanostructured surfaces. Phys. Rev. B 94, 035419 (2016)