基于脉冲CO_2激光锡等离子体光刻光源的极紫外辐射光谱特性研究

Characteristics of Extreme Ultraviolet Emission from Tin Plasma Using CO_2 Laser for Lithography

研究了不同条件下脉冲放电CO2激光烧蚀平板锡靶产生的等离子体极紫外辐射特性,设计并建立了一套掠入射极紫外平焦场光栅光谱仪,结合X射线CCD探测了光源在6.5～16.8nm波段的时间积分辐射光谱,得到了极紫外光谱随激光脉宽,入射脉冲能量及背景气压的变化规律。实验结果发现:入射激光脉冲能量在30～600mJ变化时,极紫外辐射光谱的强度随辐照激光脉冲能量的增加而增加,但并不是线性关系,具有饱和效应,且产生极紫外辐射的脉冲能量阈值约为30mJ,当激光脉冲能量为425mJ时具有最高的转换效率,此时中心波长13.5nm处2%带宽内的转换效率约为1.2%。激光脉冲半高全宽在50～120ns范围内变化时,极紫外辐射光谱的峰值位置均位于13.5nm,光谱形状几乎没有什么变化,但是脉宽从120ns变到52ns后,由于激光功率密度的提高,极紫外辐射强度也随之增强了约1.6倍。极紫外光谱的强度随背景气压的增大而迅速下降,当腔内空气气压为200Pa时,极紫外辐射光子几乎被全部吸收,而当缓冲氦气气压为7×104 Pa时,仍能够探测到微弱的极紫外辐射信号,计算表明100Pa的空气对13.5nm极紫外光的吸收系数为3.0m-1,而100Pa的He气的吸收系数为0.96m-1。

The extreme ultraviolet （EUV） emission characteristics from Sn plasma for lithography produced by a pulse discharge CO2 laser was investigated under different conditions. Extreme ultraviolet spectral measurements were made throughout the wavelength region of 6.5 nm to 16.8 rma using a grazing incidence flat-field spectrograph coupled with an Xray charge-coupled device camera for detection of time-integrated spectra. The dependence of spectral properties of the EUV emission on pulse dura- tion, incidence pulse energy, and buffer gas pressure was investigated. The results show that the peak of EUV spectra was loca- ted at 13.5 nrm The intensity of EUV emission increased with increasing laser energy ranging from 30 mJ to 600 mJ in a nonlinear manner with saturation effect. The critical energy of incident pulse laser for the generation of EUV emission is near 30 mJ in our experiment. The highest conversion efficiency of 1.2% in producing 13.5 nm EUV light with 0.27 nm bandwidth was achieved at pump energy of 425 mJ. The EUV spectra from a plate target produced by laser pulse with full width at half maxi- mum range from 50 ns to 120 ns were recorded and negligible differences in their spectral features noticed even though higher spectral intensity was observed by shorter pulse duration. The 2% in-band EUV intensity with 52 ns pulse duration was 1.6 times higher than that with 120 ns pulse duration due to the increase in laser intensity. It was also found that the detected EUV spectral intensity rapidly decreased with increasing buffer air pressure, and the EUV emission could be totally absorbed at the pressure of 200 Pa, while weak EUV emission could be still detected at the buffer He gas pressure of 7 × 104 Pa. The experimental results showed that the absorption coefficient of 13.5 nm light at air buffer gas pressure of 100 Pa was 3.0 m 1 , while the absorption coefficient was 0.96 m-1 at the same He buffer gas pressure.