Abstract

Laser plasma short wavelength sources are finding increasing applications in science and advanced technologies. In the development of Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL), the leading technology to replace optical lithography, the source of choice is a high repetition-rate (> 1kHz) laserplasma, capable of providing at least 7 W of radiation within a 3% spectral bandwidth at 13 nm Laser plasmas make excellent pulsed x-ray sources in the so-called “water window” (2.5 - 4 5 nm) for nanometer-resolution x-ray microscopy of biological organisms in their natural state. And plasmas produced by femtosecond lasers are now a source of high-energy x-ray radiation for x-ray diffraction and radiography. A common requirement of these applications, that there be no collateral particulate emission from the plasma, has lead to the development of the liquid droplet source, introduced in 1993¹, as a bright source in the soft x-rays and EUV radiation. Our previous work with a 100 kHz water droplet system generated 13 nm and 11 6 nm line emission from a Li-like Oxygen plasma produced by 10 ns duration, 10 Hz Nd:YAG laser pulses at ~ 10¹² W/cm².

© 2000 IEEE