That still left questions for me. I checked out a source I used at work to determine the binding energies for tin. The source is the Center for X-Ray Optics (cxro.lbl.gov), if you are interested. Click on x-ray database and look up the binding energies for tin electrons. It’s a simple conversion to the resonance wavelength from energy.
Not what I expected to read on CarTalk first thing this morning…
The usable emission produced is 13.5nm. Most of this is now in public domain so no issue revealing details:
3nm chip lithography primarily relies on Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, using 13.5nm light from laser-pulsed tin plasma, with Dutch firm ASML as the sole supplier of the complex machines. Foundries like TSMC (using EUV heavily, some DUV/LELE for patterning) and Samsung (GAAFETs, MBCFETs) use these cutting-edge tools, alongside advanced techniques like Stochastic Self-Aligned Double Patterning (SADP) for features beyond EUV’s direct resolution, to create these tiny circuits.
Remember inverse centimeters on spectrograms from chemistry class? That’s a proxy for energy. Multiply by Planck’s constant and the speed of light and its recast in terms of energy. The advantage is that there is a sharp change in transmission when the binding energy of electrons is exceeded.
When I Googled “inverse centimeters on spectrograms” I wasn’t smart enough to understand the answer… ![]()
Back when I took “chemistry” so many, many years ago, it was called “Alchemy” and then we only had four elements… Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. ![]()
That image is so AI it’s creepy. But understand it’s point.
What, you did not think it was my class photo? ![]()
Of course not, That time period is to new…
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Kidding sir…
