Mechanical stress induced by external forces in the extreme ultraviolet pellicle

Abstract

EUV pellicle with very thin thickness is significantly affected when external forces are applied. The mechanical forces such as chamber-pellicle pressure difference and stage acceleration cause the mechanical stress in pellicle. We investigated the maximum stress that can be induced by the pressure difference for various materials by using finite element method (FEM). We also used theoretical model and FEM for predicting the pellicle deformation. Our results show the mechanical deformation and the stress of full size (152 × 120 mm2) pellicle with 50 nm thickness, and the influence of the pellicle is increased with larger pressure difference. We also studied the maximum stress caused by the acceleration force of the scanner. The full size pellicle is greatly influenced with the specific pulse width causing resonance. Our study indicates that mechanical stress with acceleration is very small and can be ignored. © 2016 SPIE.