Purdue's School of Nuclear Engineering has seen positive results when matching super computer simulations with real world experiments in the laboratory around laser produced plasma beams. The research goal is to develop new methods for etching electronic components that are much narrower then current technology. While some design hurdles still exist (see below), using Plasma to create the "Extreme Ultraviolet" light necessary to downsize components has provided promising progress.

From the article.

Researchers are adapting the same methods used in fusion-energy research to create extremely thin plasma beams for a new class of "nanolithography" required to make future computer chips. The new plasma-based lithography under development generates "extreme ultraviolet" light having a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers, less than one-tenth the size of current lithography, Hassanein said.

New nanolithography will be needed to continue advances in computer technology and to extend Moore's law, an unofficial rule stating that the number of transistors on integrated circuits, or chips, doubles about every 18 months.

"We can't make devices much smaller using conventional lithography, so we have to find ways of creating beams having more narrow wavelengths," said Ahmed Hassanein, the Paul L. Wattelet Professor of Nuclear Engineering and head of Purdue's School of Nuclear Engineering.

Critical to the research is a computer simulation, called HEIGHTS - for high-energy interaction with general heterogeneous target systems - developed by Hassanein's team. Computations for a single HEIGHTS simulation using Argonne supercomputers can take several months to finish, said Hassanein, a former Argonne senior scientist who led work there to develop HEIGHTS.

HEIGHTS simulates the entire process of the plasma evolution: the laser interacting with the target, and the target evaporating, ionizing and turning into a plasma. The simulation also shows what happens when the magnetic forces "pinch" the plasma cloud into a smaller diameter spot needed to generate the photons.

Findings in the paper detail the laser-produced plasma beams, showing that simulations match data from laboratory experiments recently built at Purdue, Hassanein said.

"It was very exciting to see this match because it means we are on the right track," Hassanein said. "The computer simulations tell us how to optimize the entire system and where to go next with the experiments to verify that."

One design challenge stems from the fact that lenses absorb the photons that make up light, meaning they cannot be used to focus the beam. Instead, mirrors are used in the design. However, plasma condenses on the mirrors, reducing their reflectivity and limiting the efficiency of the process.

"We are trying to help find innovative ways of producing these photons, optimizing the production and mitigating the effects of the plasma on the mirrors," Hassanein said. "So we are trying to improve the entire system."

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