Excimer-Laser-Driven EUV Plasma Source for Single-Shot Projection Lithography

We present a low-cost microexposure tool for projection lithography at 14.4 nm we have designed and operated at the ENEA Research Centre, Frascati. It is a laboratory-scale system based on a Schwarzschild-type projection optics which uses a laser-plasma soft X-ray source, equipped with a patented debris mitigation system in order to preserve the collector optics. As a preliminary result, we achieved a 90-nm optical resolution patterning on commercial resist. A sharp improvement in resolution size is expected when operating this tool by a large-output energy excimer laser in order to obtain a single-shot patterning.