SYSTEMATIC X-RAY LITHOGRAPHY WITH A HIGH AVERAGE POWER LASER

A HIGH AVERAGE POWER LASER CAN MEET THE NEAR TERM DOD GOAL OF DEVELOPING AN X-RAY SOURCE FOR SUBMICRON X-RAY LITHOGRAPHY. DESIGN RULES OF 0.25 MICROMETER AND SMALLER ARE ACHIEVABLE ON THE FACTORY FLOOR WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS WITH SUCH A SYSTEM. A TIGHTLY FOCUSSED SOLID STATE LASER CAN PRODUCE A HIGH-TEMPERATURE, HIGHDENSITY PLASMA WHICH RADIATES X-RAYS INTO THE IMPORTANT 1-2 KEV SPECTRAL REGION. BY CLEVER USES OF PULSE SHAPING AND LASER-TARGET DESIGN, WE WILL LAY PLANS FOR A RELIABLE, COMPACT, EFFICIENT X-RAY EXPOSURE SYSTEM. PHASE I WILL INCLUDE THE DESIGN OF THE TARGET (MATERIAL AND CONFIGURATION), THE BEST LASER APPROACH, OPTICAL SWITCH-OUT AND PULSE SHAPE CONTROL, X-RAY FILTERING AND SPECTRAL CONTROL INSTRUMENTATION, FOCUSSING OPTICS, AND MATCHING TO PARTICULAR X-RAY PHOTORESISTS. WE WILL USE OUR XCALIBR SOFT X-RAY CALIBRATION FACILITY TO EVALUATE THE WAVELENGTH SENSITIVITY OF SEVERAL COMMERCIAL RESISTS. THE RESULTS OF THIS EFFORT WILL LEAD TO PHASE II EXPERIMENTS USING A KMSF LASER (OR A SPECIALLY DESIGNED LASER) TO QUANTIFY THE SPECTRAL X-RAY OUTPUT OF THE CHOSEN LASER-PLASMA TARGETS AND TO DEMONSTRATE RESIST EXPOSURE. THE FINAL PHASE II EQUIPMENT WILL BE ATTACHED TO EXISTING STEP-AND-REPEAT EXPOSURE EQUIPMENT, SUCH AS THAT BUILT AT PERKIN-ELMER FOR X-RAY LITHOGRAPHY.