Joint funding with DESY to develop x-ray laser for the semiconductor industry
The Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM) by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) will fund a development project for a high-performance laser to be developed by DESY and the start-up Class 5 Photonics starting January 2022.
The goal of the collaboration is to develop a high-performance laser with ultrashort x-ray pulses that can be used as a measuring instrument in quality assurance.
Read the article on the DESY website
Class 5 Photonics develops compact and brilliant extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray laser sources for future solutions in the semiconductor market.
The most recent and future chipmaking for important technologies such as 5G and autonomous mobility is based on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. While the EUV fabrication itself is driven by massive high-tech machines of tremendous complexity, the future throughput and precision rely on fast metrology tools and next-generation photoresist materials.
Laser-driven EUV and soft x-ray sources offer unique properties for the implementation of innovative imaging tools to be applied in metrology and spectroscopy methods for chemical analysis. Further, compact interferometers and even EUV workstations for rapid prototyping are possible.