Excimer-laser-driven EUV plasma source for single-shot lithography

Summary form only given. The Italian Ministry of University and Research funded a national project, named FIRB EUVL, for building-up a prototype of a Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) exposure tool and improving the Italian know-how on projection EUV lithography. The main goal of this prototype is to print pattern with sub-100-nm resolution on both commercial photoresists and on LiF films in a single-shot exposure, thus avoiding the severe blurring problem related to the nm-scale vibrations of the optics that affect the standard multi-shots, high-repetition-rate EUV exposure tools for lithography. The project partners are ENEA, the Universities of Padua and L´Aquila and the companies El.En. SpA and Media Lario srl. In this talk, we present the design elements and the experimental results of the main components of the prototype, including the plasma source driven by the high- output energy excimer laser facility Hercules, the patent- pending debris mitigation system, the optical set-up, and the alignment technique of the Schwarzschild objective that is based on a novel software-guided version of the well known Foucault test. Preliminary results of sub-100-nm pattern printed on LiF and commercial photoresist will be shown.