An extreme ultraviolet light concentrating mirror may include a substrate, a multilayer reflection film provided on the substrate and configured to reflect extreme ultraviolet light, and a protective film provided on the multilayer reflection film. Here, the protective film may include a mixed film in which a network-forming oxide is mixed with an amorphous titanium oxide, or a mixed film in which two or more amorphous titanium oxide layers and two or more network-forming oxide layers are each alternately laminated.

A gamma ray generator includes a plate, a plurality of holes and a plurality of gamma ray sources. The plate is configured to rotate along a rotational axis. The holes are disposed in the plate, and the holes are arranged in a matrix. The gamma ray sources are respectively placed in the holes.

A microlithographic projection exposure mirror has an optical effective surface (11, 21, 31), a mirror substrate (12, 22, 32), a reflection layer system (17, 27, 37) reflecting electromagnetic radiation incident on the optical effective surface, and at least one piezoelectric layer (14, 24, 34) arranged between the substrate and the reflection layer system. An electric field for producing a locally variable deformation is applied by a first electrode arrangement (15, 25, 35) situated on the side of the piezoelectric layer facing the reflection layer system, and by a second electrode arrangement (13, 23, 33) situated on the side of the piezoelectric layer facing the mirror substrate. A layer (16, 26b, 36b) of amorphous material which is compaction-sensitive on exposure to low-energy electron beam radiation and which is arranged on the side of the piezoelectric layer facing the reflection layer system has a thickness of at least 20 m.

A microlithographic projection exposure mirror has a mirror substrate (12, 32), a reflection layer system (21, 41) for reflecting electromagnetic radiation that is incident on the mirror's optical effective surface, and at least one piezoelectric layer (16, 36), which is arranged between the mirror substrate and the reflection layer system and to which an electric field for producing a locally variable deformation is applied by a first electrode arrangement situated on the side of the piezoelectric layer facing the reflection layer system, and by a second electrode arrangement situated on the side of the piezoelectric layer facing the mirror substrate. One of the electrode arrangements is assigned a mediator layer (17, 37, 51, 52, 53, 71) for setting an at least regionally continuous profile of the electrical potential along the respective electrode arrangement. The mediator layer has at least two mutually electrically insulated regions (17a, 17b, 17c, . . . ; 37a, 37b, 37c, . . . ).

An FEL includes a feedback device for feeding back emitted illumination radiation.

A system includes a plate configured for mounting of a reflective extreme ultra-violet (EUV) mask thereon and a zone plate configured to divide EUV light into zero-order light and first-order light and to pass the zero-order light and the first-order light to the reflective EUV mask. The system further includes a detector configured to receive EUV light reflected by the EUV mask and including a zero-order light detection region configured to generate a first image signal and a first-order light detection region configured to generate a second image signal, and a calculator configured to generate a compensated third image signal from the first image signal and the second image signal. The third image signal may be used to determine a distance between mask patterns of the EUV mask.

A catoptric system having a reference axis and including a reflective pattern-source (carrying a substantially one-dimensional pattern) and a combination of two optical reflectors disposed sequentially to transfer EUV radiation incident onto the first optical component to the pattern-source the substantially one-dimensional pattern of which is disposed in a curved surface. In one case, such combination includes only two optical reflectors (each may contain multiple constituent components). The combination is disposed in a fixed spatial and optical relationship with respect to the pattern-source, and represents an illumination unit (IU) of a 1D EUV exposure tool that additionally includes a projection optical sub-system configured to form an optical image of the pattern-source on an image plane with the use of only two beams of radiation. These only two beams of radiation originate at the pattern-source from the EUV radiation transferred onto the pattern-source.

There is provided a projection display device comprising: a light source, an SBG device comprising a multiplicity of separately SBG elements sandwich between transparent substrate to which transparent electrodes have been applied. The substrates function as a light guide. A least one transparent electrode comprises plurality of independently switchable transparent electrodes elements, each electrode element substantially overlaying a unique SBG element. Each SBG element encodes image information to be projected on an image surface. Light coupled into the light guide, undergoes total internal reflection until diffracted out to the light guide by an activated SBG element. The SBG diffracts light out of the light guide to form an image region on an image surface when subjected to an applied voltage via said transparent electrodes.

A lithography exposure system includes a light source, a substrate stage, and a mask stage between the light source and the substrate stage along an optical path from the light source to the substrate stage. The lithography exposure system further comprises a reflector along the optical path. The reflector comprises: a first layer having a first material and a first thickness; a second layer having the first material and a second thickness different from the first thickness; and a third layer between the first layer and the second layer, and having a second material different from the first material.

A projection exposure method for exposing a radiation-sensitive substrate with at least one image of a pattern of a mask is provided in which an illumination field of the mask is illuminated by illumination radiation with an operating wavelength λ that was provided by an illumination system.