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Title: Conformal growth of Mo/Si multilayers on grating substrates using collimated ion beam sputtering

Journal Article · · Journal of Applied Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4710985· OSTI ID:1093576
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology, Dresden (Germany)

Deposition of multilayers on saw-tooth substrates is a key step in the fabrication of multilayer blazed gratings (MBG) for extreme ultraviolet and soft x-rays. Growth of the multilayers can be perturbed by shadowing effects caused by the highly corrugated surface of the substrates, which results in distortion of the multilayer stack structure and degradation of performance of MBGs. In this study, to minimize the shadowing effects, we used an ion-beamsputtering machine with a highly collimated atomic flux to deposit Mo/Si multilayers on saw-tooth substrates. The sputtering conditions were optimized by finding a balance between smoothening and roughening processes in order to minimize degradation of the groove profile in the course of deposition and at the same time to keep the interfaces of a multilayer stack smooth enough for high efficiency. An optimal value of energy of 200 eV for sputtering Kr+ ions was found by deposition of test multilayers on flat substrates at a range of ion energies. Two saw-tooth substrates were deposited at energies of 200 eV and 700 eV for the sputtering ions. It was found that reduction of the ion energy improved the blazing performance of the MBG and resulted in a 40% gain in the diffraction efficiency due to better replication of the groove profile by the multilayer. As a result of the optimization performed, an absolute diffraction efficiency of 28.8% was achieved for the 2nd blaze order of the MBG with a groove density of 7350 lines/mm at a wavelength of 13.5 nm. Lastly, details of the growth behavior of the multilayers on flat and saw-tooth substrates are discussed in terms of the linear continuous model of film growth.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1093576
Report Number(s):
LBNL-5433E
Journal Information:
Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 111, Issue 9; ISSN 0021-8979
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English