Spherical pinch (soft X-rays/EUV) and vacuum spark (soft/hard X-rays) radiation sources

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:423050

Zhang, L; Bielawski, M; Chen, H ^[1]; Panarella, E ^[2]

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1. Advanced Laser and Fusion Technology, Inc., Hull, Quebec (Canada)
2. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering

X-ray microlithography is a well understood technology by now, however, a compact, cost-effective and intense point soft X-ray source is needed to push this technology from research laboratories into production fabs. Among the various schemes of plasma radiation sources, spherical pinch and vacuum spark have been pursued by ALFT (Advanced Laser and Fusion Technology, Inc.) for a number of years as potential candidates for point X-ray sources in future microlithography technology. The spherical pinch is essentially a geometrically modified {theta}-pinch. The vacuum spark is a pulsed high current discharge through two properly shaped electrodes in a vacuum. The system specifications and recent experiments results of both spherical pinch and the vacuum spark will be presented at the conference.

• OSTI ID: 423050
• Report Number(s): CONF-960634--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES
42 ENGINEERING
DESIGN
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
FABRICATION
MASKING
THETA PINCH
X-RAY SOURCES