Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Excimer laser
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
== Major applications == === Photolithography === {{Main|Semiconductor device fabrication}} Since the 1960s the most widespread industrial application of excimer lasers has been in deep-ultraviolet [[photolithography]],<ref name="ieee1982">{{cite journal | url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1482581 | doi=10.1109/EDL.1982.25476 | bibcode=1982IEDL....3...53J | title=Ultrafast deep UV Lithography with excimer lasers | last1=Jain | first1=K. | last2=Willson | first2=C. G. | last3=Lin | first3=B. J. | journal=IEEE Electron Device Letters | date=1982 | volume=3 | issue=3 | page=53 | url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="spie1990">Jain, K. ''"Excimer Laser Lithography"'', SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA, 1990.</ref> a critical technology used in the manufacturing of [[microelectronic]] devices. Historically, from the early 1960s through the mid-1980s, mercury-xenon lamps were used in lithography for their spectral lines at 436, 405 and 365 nm wavelengths. However, with the semiconductor industry's need for both higher resolution (to produce denser and faster chips) and higher throughput (for lower costs), the lamp-based lithography tools were no longer able to meet the industry's requirements. This challenge was overcome when in a pioneering development in 1982, deep-UV excimer laser lithography was proposed and demonstrated at IBM by [[Kanti Jain]].<ref name="ieee1982" /><ref name="Polasko">{{cite journal | url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1484194 | doi=10.1109/EDL.1984.25818 | bibcode=1984IEDL....5...24P | title=Deep UV exposure of Ag2Se/GeSe2utilizing an excimer laser | last1=Polasko | first1=K. J. | last2=Ehrlich | first2=D. J. | last3=Tsao | first3=J. Y. | last4=Pease | first4=R. F. W. | last5=Marinero | first5=E. E. | journal=IEEE Electron Device Letters | date=1984 | volume=5 | issue=1 | page=24 | url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="spie1990" /><ref>{{cite book | doi=10.1007/3-540-26667-4_2 | chapter=Historical Review of Excimer Laser Development | title=Excimer Laser Technology | date=2005 | last1=Basting | first1=D. | last2=Djeu | first2=N. | last3=Jain | first3=K. | pages=8β21 | isbn=3-540-20056-8 }}</ref> From an even broader scientific and technological perspective, since the invention of the laser in 1960, the development of excimer laser lithography has been highlighted as one of the major milestones in the history of the laser.<ref>American Physical Society / Lasers / History / Timeline: http://www.laserfest.org/lasers/history/timeline.cfm</ref><ref>{{Cite report|url=http://spie.org/Documents/AboutSPIE/SPIE%20Laser%20Luminaries.pdf|title=SPIE / Advancing the Laser / 50 Years and into the Future|date=Jan 6, 2010}}</ref><ref>U.K. Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council / Lasers in Our Lives / 50 Years of Impact: {{cite web |url=http://www.stfc.ac.uk/Resources/PDF/Lasers50_final1.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2011-08-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110913160302/http://www.stfc.ac.uk/Resources/PDF/Lasers50_final1.pdf |archive-date=2011-09-13 }}</ref> Current lithography tools (as of 2021) mostly use deep ultraviolet (DUV) light from the KrF and ArF excimer lasers with wavelengths of 248 and 193 nanometers (called "excimer laser lithography"<ref name="ieee1982" /><ref name="Polasko" /><ref name="spie1990" /><ref>Lin, B. J., ''"Optical Lithography"'', SPIE Press, Bellingham, WA, 2009, p. 136.</ref>), which has enabled transistor feature sizes to shrink to 7 nanometers (see below). Excimer laser lithography has thus played a critical role in the continued advance of the so-called [[Moore's law]] for the last 25 years.<ref name="spie2010">La Fontaine, B., "Lasers and Moore's Law", SPIE Professional, Oct. 2010, p. 20. http://spie.org/x42152.xml</ref> By around 2020, [[extreme ultraviolet lithography]] (EUV) has started to replace excimer laser lithography to further improve the resolution of the semiconductor circuits lithography process.<ref>{{cite web |date=19 October 2019 |title=Samsung 5 nm and 4 nm Update |url=https://fuse.wikichip.org/news/2823/samsung-5-nm-and-4-nm-update/ |access-date=29 October 2021 |publisher=WikiChip Fuse}}</ref> === Fusion === The [[Naval Research Laboratory]] built two systems, the [[Krypton fluoride laser]] (248 nm) and the [[Argon fluoride laser]] (193 nm) to test approaches to prove out [[Inertial confinement fusion|Inertial Confinement Fusion]] approaches. These were the Electra and [[Nike laser]] systems. Because the excimer laser is a gas-based system, the laser does not heat up like solid-state systems such as [[National Ignition Facility]] and the [[Laboratory for Laser Energetics|Omega Laser]]. Electra demonstrated 90,000 shots in 10 hours; ideal for a [[Inertial fusion power plant]].<ref>{{cite journal | doi=10.1364/AO.54.00F103 | title=High-energy krypton fluoride lasers for inertial fusion | date=2015 | last1=Obenschain | first1=Stephen | last2=Lehmberg | first2=Robert | last3=Kehne | first3=David | last4=Hegeler | first4=Frank | last5=Wolford | first5=Matthew | last6=Sethian | first6=John | last7=Weaver | first7=James | last8=Karasik | first8=Max | journal=Applied Optics | volume=54 | issue=31 | pages=F103-22 | pmid=26560597 | bibcode=2015ApOpt..54F.103O }}</ref> === Medical uses === The ultraviolet light from an excimer laser is well absorbed by [[biotic material|biological matter]] and [[organic compound]]s. Rather than burning or cutting material, the excimer laser adds enough energy to disrupt the molecular bonds of the surface tissue, which effectively [[wikt:disintegrate|disintegrates]] into the air in a tightly controlled manner through [[ablation]] rather than burning. Thus excimer lasers have the useful property that they can remove exceptionally fine layers of surface material with almost no heating or change to the remainder of the material which is left intact. These properties make excimer lasers well suited to precision micromachining organic material (including certain [[polymer]]s and plastics), or delicate [[surgery|surgeries]] such as [[LASIK|LASIK eye surgery]]. In 1980β1983, [[Rangaswamy Srinivasan]], [[Samuel Blum]] and [[James J. Wynne]] at [[IBM]]'s [[Thomas J. Watson Research Center|T. J. Watson Research Center]] observed the effect of the ultraviolet excimer laser on biological materials. Intrigued, they investigated further, finding that the laser made clean, precise cuts that would be ideal for delicate surgeries. This resulted in a fundamental patent<ref>{{Ref patent|country=US|number=4784135|title= Far ultraviolet surgical and dental procedures|gdate=1988-10-15}}</ref> and Srinivasan, Blum and Wynne were elected to the [[National Inventors Hall of Fame]] in 2002. In 2012, the team members were honored with [[National Medal of Technology and Innovation]] by the [[President of The United States|President]] [[Barack Obama]] for their work related to the excimer laser.<ref>{{cite web|title=IBM News Release|url=http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/39829.wss|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121231063032/http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/39829.wss|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 31, 2012|publisher=IBM|access-date=21 December 2012|date=2012-12-21}}</ref> Subsequent work introduced the excimer laser for use in [[angioplasty]].<ref>{{cite journal | title = Far-ultraviolet laser ablation of atherosclerotic lesions |author1=R. Linsker |author2=R. Srinivasan |author3=J. J. Wynne |author4=D. R. Alonso | journal = Lasers Surg. Med. | volume=4 | issue=1 | pages=201β206 | year=1984 | doi = 10.1002/lsm.1900040212|pmid=6472033 |s2cid=12827770 }}</ref> Xenon chloride (308 nm) excimer lasers are also used to treat a variety of dermatological conditions including [[psoriasis]], [[vitiligo]], [[atopic dermatitis]], [[alopecia areata]] and leukoderma.{{citation needed|date=August 2024}} As light sources, excimer lasers are generally large in size, which is a disadvantage in their medical applications, although their sizes are rapidly decreasing with ongoing development.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} Research is being conducted to compare differences in safety and effectiveness outcomes between conventional excimer laser [[refractive surgery]] and wavefront-guided or wavefront-optimized refractive surgery, as wavefront methods may better correct for [[aberrations of the eye|higher-order aberrations]].<ref name="Li">{{cite journal |vauthors=Li SM, Kang MT, Zhou Y, Wang NL, Lindsley K |title= Wavefront excimer laser refractive surgery for adults with refractive errors |journal=Cochrane Database Syst Rev|volume=6 |issue= 6 |pages= CD012687 |date=2017 |doi= 10.1002/14651858.CD012687|pmc=6481747 }}</ref> === Scientific research === Excimer lasers are also widely used in numerous fields of scientific research, both as primary sources and, particularly the XeCl laser, as pump sources for tunable [[dye lasers]], mainly to excite laser dyes emitting in the blue-green region of the spectrum.<ref>Duarte, F. J. and Hillman, L. W. (Eds.), ''Dye Laser Principles'' (Academic, New York, 1990) Chapter 6.</ref><ref>Tallman, C. and Tennant, R., Large-scale excimer-laser-pumped dye lasers, in ''High Power Dye Lasers'', Duarte, F. J. (Ed.) (Springer, Berlin, 1991) Chapter 4.</ref> These lasers are also commonly used in [[pulsed laser deposition]] systems, where their large [[Radiant exposure|fluence]], short wavelength and non-continuous beam properties make them ideal for the ablation of a wide range of materials.<ref>Chrisey, D.B. and Hubler, G.K., ''Pulsed Laser Deposition of Thin Films'' (Wiley, 1994), {{ISBN|9780471592181}}, Chapter 2.</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)