Patrick Nauleau

LBNL Staff Scientist

pnaulleau@lbl.gov
phone: 510-486-4529

Education
B.S. Electrical Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, 1991
Ph.D Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1997


Major Awards
2003 R&D 100 Award, “Extreme UV Lithography Full Field Step and Scan System,”
2003 Excellence in Technology Transfer award given by the Federal Laboratory Consortium For Technology Transfer in recognition of the “Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Tool,”
1998 Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Advanced Light Source Halbach Prize for Instrumentation


General Research Interests
· nanolithography
· nanometrology
· optical systems design
· interfereomtry
· diffractive optics

Dr. Naulleau's research focuses on nanolithography and related metrology techniques, optical systems, and optical elements. The leading next generation lithography candidate for large volume semiconductor manufacturing is extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. The resolution of an optical system is ultimately limited by the wavelength of the illumination used. Current optical-wavelength technologies are approaching a brick wall owing to significant absorbance issues with refractive lens materials as wavelength shrink to below 193 nm. For this reason, the development of 157-nm lithography has been all but abandoned. To address this issue a new lithographic technology is being developed based on dramatic reduction in wavelength to near 13 nm. Combining this wavelength with advanced reflective optics relying on nanoscale multilayer coating, enables the technology to print features approaching 7-nm in width. Although the technology is already in the early tool production phase, significant hurdles remain to achieving EUV volume manufacturing.

Resist technology is one of the major hurdles for EUV. Professor Naulleau’s research in this area includes the experimental characterization of the fundamental limitations of resists. This includes the development and implementation of both metrology and analysis techniques as well as the development of the requisite optical and software systems. Figure 1 shows some of the latest results demonstrating nearly 20-nm resolution in a chemically amplified EUV resist imaged with the Berkeley EUV microfield exposure tool. The Berkeley EUV exposure tool fully supported by t SEMATECH, an industry consortium of leading semiconductor manufacturers.

Another significant hurdle remaining for EUV is the realization of lithographic quality optics. Advanced lithography demands optical systems of incredible quality. The traditional Rayleigh metric of “diffraction limited” is not nearly good enough. Utilizing a wavelength of approximately 13 nm, means that the lithographic optics must be accurate to the picometer scale. Dr. Naulleau’s research is further directed towards methods and systems for the characterization of these optics.

MSD Research Projects:
Center for X-Ray Optics

Personal website: http://www.cxro.msd.lbl.gov/~pnaulleau/index.php