Fraunhofer IWM
About the company
The Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM, based in Freiburg, southern Germany, is a research and development partner for industry and public contracting bodies. The institute focuses on component and systems reliability, safety, durability, and functionality and identifies weaknesses and defects in materials and components, determines their causes, and develops solutions that lead to safer component use, functional materials, and resource-efficient manufacturing processes. The institute's work spans multiple scales—from atomic-level crystal structures and defects, through material microstructures, to the behavior of macroscopic components under real-world operating conditions. This multiscale approach encompasses the characterization, modeling, design, and evaluation of materials and components, pursued both experimentally and numerically.
Project contribution
Our role is to model and study the interaction of gas and plasma with different surfaces in the EUV lithography machine from an atomistic point of view. That means we use state of the art modelling techniques (Density Functional Theory, Machine Learning Interatomic Potentials, Molecular Dynamics Simulations) to enhance the knowledge of possible degradation mechanisms that could reduce the mirrors’ lifetimes. Specifically, we modelled processes occurring due to residual gases in the vacuum chamber including metal hydrides, tin particles and the hydrogen plasma. For example, we successfully studied the oxidation and reduction of surfaces and the generation and decomposition of metal hydrides. Together with the partners of our work package in the 14AMI project, the goal is to contribute to a heuristic understanding of the underlying optics system in order to improve the mirrors’ lifetimes.