The degradation and Carbon contamination of X-ray optics is a well-known problem in X-ray beamlines that has been detrimental to beamline performance for several decades. This is particularly problematic, as such optics are usually highly specialized and coated with various materials. Consequences of such contamination include loss of flux, distortion of the wavefront, and reduction in...
Norbert Böwering(1) and Christian Meier(1)
Bowering@physik.uni-bielefeld.de
(1) Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany
Considerable tin-splash contamination can occur on multilayer-coated optics when used with tin-based plasma light sources in EUV lithography applications. Generally, thick tin deposits cannot be removed sufficiently fast by plasma etching;...
For the measurement of the spectral distribution in a broadband wavelength range, spectrographs are typically used. Depending on the target application, the spectrograph can be designed for reflection or transmission mode. Although reflective spectrographs generally offer a higher resolution due to the possibility of applying aberration corrections and focusing options, the main advantages of...
With the rapid growth of data-intensive applications such as autonomous driving and artificial intelligence, the performance requirements of semiconductor devices have significantly escalated. In parallel, the critical dimensions of circuit patterns have been reduced to the nanoscale, necessitating the adoption of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to overcome the resolution limits of...
The WDSX-300 spectrometer, developed at the Institute for Applied Photonics (IAP) in cooperation with Nano Optics Berlin (NOB), has been designed for wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis with a scanning electron microscope (SEM-WDX) in the EUV and soft X-ray range. With the currently installed setup, an energy range from 30 eV to 400 eV can be covered, including K fluorescence...
This work investigates the potential benefits of employing combined s- and p-polarized extreme ultraviolet (EUV) reflectometry for the accurate and efficient determination of thin film optical constants and geometrical parameters. EUV reflectometry (EUVR) is a powerful non-destructive technique for characterizing thin films, which is crucial for advancements in fields such as lithography and...
Fused silica (amorphous SiO₂) and quartz crystal both feature ultra-low thermal expansion and exceptional transparency from the visible to the deep-ultraviolet. Quartz additionally offers strong piezoelectricity and pronounced birefringence, making both materials cornerstones of modern optics. Yet their optical properties in the extreme- and vacuum-ultraviolet (35–140 nm) remain largely...
We design a wavelength dispersive spectrometer for the extreme ultraviolet, based on a collimating polycapillary lens (PCL) and an array of reflection zone plates (RZPs). The two-channel instrument is optimized for narrow-band fluorescence or inverse photoelectron spectroscopy around 15 eV and 36 eV, respectively. The halved PCL is composed of $\sim 10^{6}$ tapered borosilicate glass tubes...
Angle-resolved X-ray fluorescence is a powerful tool for elemental depth distribution characterization of thin films. This technique is based on the formation of an X-ray standing wave (XSW), which is strictly dependent on the coherence length of the propagating wave. In grazing incidence geometry finite coherence length leads to a wave modulation which reduces interference fringes contrast...
The continuously shrinking dimensions of the features in the semiconductor industry as well as their increasing complexity require innovative metrology solutions. Non-destructive methods with high throughput that are able to assess complex 3D structures are of major importance. Measurement techniques based on light-structure interaction allow fast and non-destructive inspection of structured...
Scatterometry provides a fast and indirect method for nano-optical shape reconstruction from measured light intensities. The shape parameters are determined by solving an inverse problem, that is based on the forward model. Bayesian inversion is a powerful tool for solving inverse problems but limited by the complexity of the forward model. As nanotechnology advances and structures become...
The development of compact radiation sources has enabled a multitude of lab-size applications, especially in the field of metrology [1]. A broadband spectral characterization of the source emission is of utmost importance for the investigation of photon-induced processes and metrology [2].
In this study, the authors present a unique setup and corresponding measurement results for the...
X-Ray Reflectivity (XRR) is a well-established metrology method for multilayer characterization. With XRR, we determine the structural parameters describing the optical structure of a given sample (i.e., layer thickness, intermixing/roughness and optical density); we do so by solving the related inverse problem. To do so, one uses a model which calculates the reflectivity given a set of...
In recent years, the Institut für Nanophotonik Göttingen e.V. (formerly Laser-Laboratorium Göttingen) has successfully developed several Hartmann wavefront sensors in collaboration with DESY. These sensors have been designed for the precise focus characterization and optics alignment of the FEL FLASH in the soft X-ray spectral range, with a wavelength of approximately 5 - 40 nm. Even when...
