A low debris laser plasma soft X-ray source

Low debris laser plasma soft X-ray source is of great importance to micro-lithography and microscopy. In this paper, a 1.06 μm YAG laser with 2 J energy, 10 ns duration is employed to irradiate a CO ₂ cryogenic target. Soft X-ray spectra from the CO ₂ cryogenic target are obtained. Experimental results of debris measurement from both CO ₂ cryogenic and Cu targets demonstrate that the light source based on the CO ₂ cryogenic target shows great improvement over conventional metal targets in debris reduction.