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EUV lithography machines are borderline science fiction. I mean if you look at all the steps included it's mind boggling. Shooting tiny droplets of tin with two

EUV lithography machines are borderline science fiction. I mean if you look at all the steps included it's mind boggling. Shooting tiny droplets of tin with two lasers at a speed of 50k times/second, harvesting uv light through atomic precision mirrors, moving wafers with nanometer precision and all that in perfect vacuum. You watch the video demos and seems like you're watching a sf movie.

tonyhart7 2y ago
that's just laser with mirror machine that beep really fast
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
kristianp 2y ago
It just seems tremendously inefficient. Power in vs useful power out is huge. What's stopping them from "just" making a uv laser? I'm guessing tin is the only material with the right size of band gap to emit at the required frequency. Nonpaywalled link: https://archive.is/flU0v https://archive.is/flU0v
- philipkglass 2y ago
  Semiconductors with direct band gaps like gallium nitride can be used to make light emitting diodes (both incoherent light and lasers). Gallium nitride emits light around 405 nanometers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_nitride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_nitride The light wavelength is proportional to the band gap. GaN has a 3.4 electron volt band gap. To get a 13.5 nanometer emission, you'd need a direct band gap material in excess of 90 electron volts: https://www.kmlabs.com/en/wavelength-to-photon-energy-calculator https://www.kmlabs.com/en/wavelength-to-photon-energy-calcul... No such materials exist. The emission from tin in EUV light sources is actually from thermal (blackbody) radiation. The infrared lasers heat tin vapor to extremely high temperatures where it shines into the extreme ultraviolet. It's inherently wasteful but this extreme ultraviolet range is much harder to access than visible light or near ultraviolet.
  - hoseja 2y ago
    It's really weird that particle accelerators or just some sort of X-ray tubes are apparently even more bothersome than precisely exploding freefalling drops of liquid tin with heat rays.

tonyhart7 2y ago

that's just laser with mirror machine that beep really fast

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

kristianp 2y ago

It just seems tremendously inefficient. Power in vs useful power out is huge. What's stopping them from "just" making a uv laser? I'm guessing tin is the only material with the right size of band gap to emit at the required frequency. Nonpaywalled link: https://archive.is/flU0v https://archive.is/flU0v

philipkglass 2y ago
Semiconductors with direct band gaps like gallium nitride can be used to make light emitting diodes (both incoherent light and lasers). Gallium nitride emits light around 405 nanometers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_nitride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium_nitride The light wavelength is proportional to the band gap. GaN has a 3.4 electron volt band gap. To get a 13.5 nanometer emission, you'd need a direct band gap material in excess of 90 electron volts: https://www.kmlabs.com/en/wavelength-to-photon-energy-calculator https://www.kmlabs.com/en/wavelength-to-photon-energy-calcul... No such materials exist. The emission from tin in EUV light sources is actually from thermal (blackbody) radiation. The infrared lasers heat tin vapor to extremely high temperatures where it shines into the extreme ultraviolet. It's inherently wasteful but this extreme ultraviolet range is much harder to access than visible light or near ultraviolet.
- hoseja 2y ago
  It's really weird that particle accelerators or just some sort of X-ray tubes are apparently even more bothersome than precisely exploding freefalling drops of liquid tin with heat rays.