Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography sources use large amounts of tin to create ultraviolet light. Accurate modeling of neutral tin transport relies on knowledge of the diffusion coefficients of neutral tin through molecular hydrogen. This work experimentally determined the diffusion coefficients of tin through molecular hydrogen vapour at different tin temperatures and ambient pressures. A known amount of tin is evaporated into a pipe with a known flow profile at a known ambient pressure. Deposited tin is measured downstream of the pipe with a quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM). A variety of analytical and numerical coefficients were then compared in order to find the diffusion coefficient.
Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography sources generate energetic tin ions. Accurate modeling of ion transport relies on knowledge of elastic scattering cross-section of tin ions against molecular hydrogen. This work uses available theoretical knowledge of elastic scattering found in literature, quantum chemistry modeling of the interaction potential between tin and hydrogen, and experimental scattering measurements of a tin ion beam to calculate the cross-section values. Furthermore, semi-classical collision calculations were used to calculate collision induced dissociation cross sections of tin ions and molecular hydrogen.
A novel method of modeling Sn (tin) scattering through H2 (molecular hydrogen) is examined. Density-functional theory (DFT) software from the Amsterdam Modeling Suite was used to determine the interaction energy of Sn and H2 at varying spacing and orientations. This data was used to generate a function that describes the average interaction energy with respect to distance between the two species for neutral Sn as well as selected Sn ionized states.
These resulting functions were inserted into RustBCA, a binary collision approximation code for ion-material interactions. The scattering of a Sn beam through H2 was modeled for each newly generated potential, along with well-known potentials such as ZBL and Moliere for comparison.
Legacy software, such as TRIM, is not capable of modeling scattering using potentials that contain attractive components. The potentials generated with DFT have attractive components, so this analysis is only possible now using RustBCA. This method can give more accurate results than previous work.
A model using the ZBL potential wherein a neutral Sn beam of 10 keV scattered through 15 cm of H2 left 87.8% of the Sn atoms within 41.4 millisteradians of the primary axis and an average energy of 816.3 eV ± 8.71 eV. The same model with a DFT-generated potential gives a much narrower particle distribution with higher average energies.
This modeling work will also be compared against ongoing experimental measurements of Sn ions through H2 for further comparison.
A hydrogen plasma cleaning technique to clean Sn (tin) off EUV collector optics is studied in detail. The cleaning process uses hydrogen radicals and ions (formed in the hydrogen plasma) to interact with Sn-coated surfaces, forming SnH 4 and being pumped away. This technique has been used to clean a 300mm-diameter stainless steel dummy collector optic, and EUV reflectivity of multilayer mirror samples was restored after etching Sn from them. Previous experiments have shown etch rates of greater than 10 nm/min over a 2 inch diameter circular plasma area with an SWP launcher. An etch experiment was conducted with a sweep over sample bias to investigate the influence of hydrogen ions. Radial etch rates for each hydrogen ion energy were measured using profilometry. Langmuir probe and radical measurements were also taken. Langmuir probe measurements of the surface wave plasma show a two temperature distribution for electrons: a bulk temperature of 2.3 eV and some population at 8.6 eV. The bulk electron density was measured to be 2.7e11 cm -3 . Radical probe measurements give the hydrogen radical density at 1.96e15 cm -3 . A COMSOL model of this experiment was also built and simulation results will be presented. In this work, experiments elucidating the fundamental processes of tin removal are conducted by varying pressure, power, surface temperature and gas flow rate. The ion bombardment reduces the number of radicals needed to etch a single tin atom to the range of -. The linear SWP antenna yields plasma densities on the order of and radical densities on the order of , allowing for greater utilization of ion etch enhancement. Etch rates of up to 200 nm/min have been achieved. The surface temperature of the samples is an important factor in the etching process such that decrease of the surface temperature increases the etch rates and decreases the hydrogen desorption rates. In addition, a kinetic etch model is developed to explain the behavior of the etch rates as function of the surface temperature. Furthermore, results from experiments performed in Illinois NXE:3100 chamber will be discussed.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.