Discovering the nano-world with bright laser beams of extreme ultraviolet light

Bright beams of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) laser light with wavelengths in the range of 10-50 nm, are enabling the implementation of imaging, and patterning tools that can probe the nano-world on a table top. In this talk I will review work by our group on the demonstration of imaging systems that have reached spatial resolutions down to 38 nm and can: i) image dynamics at the nanoscale using single-shot flash illumination, and ii) image surfaces and inspect for defects in EUV Lithograph masks. I will also describe a novel mass spectrometry microscope that exploits the interaction of extreme ultraviolet laser light and organic materials to map chemical composition in three dimensions with nanoscale resolution.

Carmen S. Menoni received her PhD in Physics from Colorado State University in 1987. Since 1991, she has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at CSU where she is presently Professor. Prof. Menoni’s research bridges from material to optical sciences. She is engaged in the growth and characterization of metal-oxide materials for the engineering of interference coatings for high power lasers. She is also actively involved in using bright coherent beams of light of wavelengths between 10-50 nm for optics applications such as imaging, mass spectrometry, and ablation. This work has been published in over 200 refereed journal and proceeding papers. Prof. Menoni and her team received in 2008 a “R&D 100 Award” for the invention of a table-top 46.9 nm wavelength microscope that can capture images in a single 1 nanosecond with wavelength spatial resolution.