Seminars Archive

Three-and-half years Experience in the ENEA Frascati Excimer Laser Laboratory: from beam shaping and characterization, and high power laser applications, to critical optical systems alignment

Abstract
After giving a brief description of the large aperture XeCl laser facility “Hercules‿ of the ENEA Frascati Research Centre, the ENEA transfocal optical beam homogenizer system will be presented. An analytical modeling is proposed for the beam propagation through the optical system by means of geometrical optics, which takes into account the phase change of rays during propagation through the homogenizer optical elements. Results of the simulation will be presented. Two applications of a homogeneous excimer laser beam, namely amorphous silicon annealing for thin-film manufacturing and textile treatment will be presented. Some results of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray radiation generation by laser-produced-plasma (LPP) technique obtained at the ENEA Research Centre of Frascati will be presented. The EUV lithography will be introduced and an overview on the Italian National Project FIRB-EUVL, currently in development in the ENEA Centre of Frascati, will be presented, paying particular attention to the optical propagation part. The Foucault test will be introduced and its use as a mean for a correct alignment of optical systems will be showed. Particularly, the Foucault test will be applied to check the critical alignment of the most important optical component of the projection lithography tool, namely the Schwarzschild objective (SO). Finally, a presentation of a measurement technique of vibrations based on the coupling of a light source and the knife edge (KE) test will be given.