Apparatus and method for removing a single particulate from a substrate

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2022011682-A1
Application number	US-202117369900-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 7, 2021
Priority date	Jul 8, 2020
Publication date	Jan 13, 2022
Grant date	—

Abstract

The present application relates to an apparatus and to a method for removing at least a single particulate from a substrate, especially an optical element for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photolithography, wherein the apparatus comprises: (a) an analysis unit designed to determine at least one constituent of a material composition of the at least one single particulate; and (b) at least one gas injection system designed to provide a gas matched to the particular constituent in an environment of the at least one single particulate; (c) wherein the matched gas contributes to removing the at least one single particulate from the substrate.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An apparatus for removing at least a single particulate from a substrate, especially an optical element for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photolithography, said apparatus comprising:
a. an analysis unit designed to determine at least one constituent of a material composition of the at least one single particulate; and b. at least one gas injection system designed to provide a gas matched to the particular constituent in an environment of the at least one single particulate; c. wherein the matched gas contributes to removing the at least one single particulate from the substrate.

2 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the analysis unit makes use of at least one element from the group of the following techniques: energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), secondary neutral mass spectrometry (SNMS), Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) and low-energy ion scattering spectroscopy (LEIS).

3 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the analysis unit is designed to take account of an external input in the determination of the at least one constituent of the material composition.

4 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a machine learning model trained to use measurement data from the analysis unit to predict the at least one constituent of the material composition of the at least one single particulate.

5 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising: at least one microscopy system designed to image the at least one single particulate, preferably during the removal of the at least one single particulate.

6 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the matched gas spontaneously etches the at least one single particulate.

7 . The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the matched gas spontaneously etches the at least one single particulate at a rate higher than the spontaneous etch rate of the substrate at least by a factor of 2, preferably at least by a factor of 5, more preferably at least by a factor of 10, and most preferably at least by a factor of 30.

8 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one single particulate comprises tin (Sn), and the matched gas comprises at least hydrogen (H 2 ), at least one hydrogen compound and/or at least nitrosyl chloride (NOCl).

9 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising: at least one particle beam that initiates a local etching reaction of a first matched gas that etches the at least one single particulate and/or initiates a local deposition reaction of a second matched gas that deposits material on the at least one single particulate.

10 . The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the at least one single particulate comprises tin and the at least one first matched gas comprises at least one element from the group of: a hydrogen compound, hydrogen (H 2 ), a halogen compound, a chlorine compound, and nitrosyl chloride (NOCl).

11 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising: at least one micromanipulator unit designed to interact with the at least one single particulate.

12 . The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the at least one micromanipulator unit comprises at least one micromanipulator, and wherein the at least one micromanipulator unit is designed to heat the at least one micromanipulator.

13 . The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the at least one micromanipulator comprises a metal or metal alloy that forms an alloy with the at least one single molten particulate.

14 . The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the at least one micromanipulator comprises bismuth (Bi) or a bismuth alloy, and the at least one constituent of the material composition of the at least one single particulate comprises tin (Sn).

15 . The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising: a voltage source designed to generate a flow of electrical current between the at least one micromanipulator and the at least one single particulate that causes electromigration in the at least one single particulate.

16 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one single particulate comprises an element from the group of: a particulate which is unstable with respect to removal from the substrate, a particulate having two or more particulate fragments, and a particulate comprising a particulate agglomerate, and wherein the gas injection system is further designed to provide, prior to the removal, a matched gas in an environment of the at least one single particulate that deposits material on the at least one single particulate.

17 . The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the micromanipulator unit is designed to remove a first portion of the at least one single particulate, and the matched gas contributes to removing a second portion of the at least one single particulate by spontaneous etching and/or by particle beam-induced etching.

18 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gas injection system is also designed, after the removal of the at least one single particulate, to provide a reconstruction gas in the environment of the at least one single removed particulate that at least partly eliminates damage to the substrate that has arisen during the removal of the at least one single particulate.

19 . A method of removing at least a single particulate from a substrate, especially an optical element for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photolithography, said method comprising the steps of:
a. determining at least one constituent of a material composition of the at least one single particulate; and b. providing a gas matched to the particular constituent of the material composition in an environment of the at least one single particulate, c. wherein the matched gas contributes to removing the at least one single particulate from the substrate.

20 . A computer program including instructions which, when executed by a computer, prompt the apparatus of claim 1 to execute the method steps of claim 19 .

Assignees

• Zeiss Carl Smt Gmbh

Inventors

• Edinger Klaus
• Hermanns Christian Felix
• Sielaff Tilo
• Oster Jens
• Baur Christof
• Kompaniiets Maksym

Classifications

• G06N3/0442

  characterised by memory or gating, e.g. long short-term memory [LSTM] or gated recurrent units [GRU] · CPC title

• G01N23/2276

  using the Auger effect, e.g. Auger electron spectroscopy [AES] · CPC title

• G01N23/2273

  Measuring photoelectron spectrum, e.g. electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis [ESCA] or X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy [XPS] · CPC title

• G06N3/08

  Learning methods · CPC title

• G06N3/044

  Recurrent networks, e.g. Hopfield networks · CPC title