Study of the dynamic evolution and spectral properties of multi-component plasmas for EUV production

The production of plasmas that radiate efficiently in the Soft X-Ray (SXR) or in the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) regions of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum can be accomplished through laser-material interaction or via gas discharge. This paper studies the expanding plasma dynamics of ions produced from a 5J Z-pinch xenon light source used for EUV lithography. Mixed fuel experiments are performed using a mixture of Xe, N ₂ and H ₂. Energy spectra show keV-range ion energies due to the self-generated electrostatic potential created by the expanding plasma. The average energy of the expelled Xe ions is significantly decreased if the mobile lighter gas species are present to mitigate this self generated potential. The magnitude of the Xe ion signal is reduced as well. This reduction in the quantity of heavy ions and their energy could greatly extend the lifetime of the collector optics used in EUV lithography. Also the study of the dynamic evolution and spectra of plasmas is directly applicable to many projects of interest, this work will focus primary on the production of EUV radiation for nano-scale lithography. Modeling results presented here were generated using a variety of codes some developed by the Plasma Materials Interaction (PMI) group at the University of Illinois, while others, namely PrismSPECT a spectral analysis suite, were developed by Prism Computational Sciences. Presented modeling results are compared to experimental data from XTREME Commercial EUV Emission Diagnostic (XCEED) experiment at the University of Illinois.