Fabrication of Mo/Si multilayer mirrors for extreme ultraviolet lithography by means of superconducting bulk magnet magnetron sputtering

The fabrication of a highly reflective multi-layer film is an urgent need in the next-generation extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to print ever-smaller circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers by using extremely short wavelength (13.5 nm) light. For this purpose, we have synthesized the Mo/Si multi-layer films by employing the two-cathode superconducting bulk magnet magnetron sputtering apparatus. The films were made by repeatedly depositing a pair of 4.5 nm thick Si and then 2.5 nm thick Mo layer up to 40 or 50 pairs on the Si wafer with its root-mean square (rms) surface roughness of 0.1 nm. The resulting rms surface roughness of the Mo/Si multi-layer film turned out to be 0.12 nm. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) studies revealed the inter-diffusion layer thicknesses of Si-on-Mo and Mo-on-Si layers to be 0.5 and 1.5 nm, respectively. The EUV-reflectivity was theoretically calculated to reach the value of 70%, when these structural data are inserted into the reflectivity formula. However, the highest EUV-reflectivity so far observed was 67% in the normal incident condition. The 2–3% shortage of the reflectivity is attributed to the presence of residual Xe gas atoms incorporated into the film during deposition in the reduced Xe gas atmosphere.