Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) is a candidate for future application by the semiconductor industry in the production of sub-100 nm feature sizes in integrated circuits. Using multilayer reflective coatings optimized at wavelengths ranging from 11 to 14 nm, EUVL represents a potential successor to currently existing optical lithography techniques. In order to assess lifetimes of the mult...

Novel capping layer structures have been deposited on periodic Mo/Si multilayers to optimize reflectance at 30.4 nm. Design, deposition and characterization of such coatings are presented. Most of the structures proposed show improved performance with respect to standard Mo/Si multilayers and are stable over time. Reflectance at 121.6 nm and in the visible spectral range have been also tested t...