On October 17, our colleague Luis Plaja will give the talk “A F***ing attosecond!: Celebrating the Nobel Prize in Physics 2023” within the +Física program. It will take place at 1:00 p.m. in classroom III of the Trilingual Building at the University of Salamanca.
Next-generation nano and quantum devices have increasingly complex 3D structure. As their dimensions shrink, their performance is often governed by interface quality or precise chemical, interfacial or dopant composition. However, correlating their structural and functional properties is challenging.
High harmonic quantum light sources provide an exquisite source of short wavelength light, with unprecedented control over the spectral, temporal, polarization and orbital angular momentum (OAM) of the emitted waveforms, from the UV to the keV photon energy region. These advances are providing powerful new tools for near-perfect x-ray functional imaging, and for engineering the illumination to achieve high-fidelity imaging – akin to the vortex beams used in visible super-resolution imaging.
Seminar’s poster can be downloaded here.
On April 25, our colleague Iñigo Sola will give the talk “Espectroscopia de Bolsillo” within the +Fisica program. It will take place at 1:00 p.m. in classroom III of the Trilingual Building at the University of Salamanca..
On February 2nd, Carlos Hernández García, Ramón y Cajal researcher, member of the Laser and Photonic Applications research group and principal investigator of the Attostructura project (ERC 851201) gave the seminar “Structuring ultrafast laser light through highly nonlinear physics” within the cycle of seminars of the Rocasolano Institute of the CSIC.
The degree of control we have achieved over the manipulation of light is truly amazing. Initiated by our Greek ancestors using mirrors to guide light, we live in a world where the most advanced laser technology allows us to create and sculpt light beams with great precision. In particular, nowadays we can create ultrashort attosecond pulses (with durations of trillionths of a second), of very high frequencies (up to the soft X-rays), and with increasingly complex spatial structures thanks to our ability to harness their angular momentum. In this talk we will review our recent work in the generation of structured ultrashort laser pulses. Thanks to the highly nonlinear process of high harmonic generation, we can tailor the spin and orbital angular momentum properties of extreme ultraviolet/soft x-ray laser pulses directly at their generation. By properly controlling the process of high harmonic generation, from the driving laser beam to the target (gas or solid), different families of structured ultrashort laser beams can be created: self-torqued beams, vector-vortex beams, tunable high-frequency combs, or hexagonal harmonic beams. These new optical tools allow us to fantasize of new laser-matter interaction processes at the nanoscale, whose physical laws are yet to be discovered. For example, structured laser pulses offer an appealing alternative to study sub-femtosecond magnetization dynamics, where a complete understanding of the electronic and spin interactions remains unexplored
You can see the full video of the seminar on this page or on Youtube channel of the Rocasolano Institute.
On November 12, Kevin Dorney, postdoctoral researcher and MSCA member of the AttoLab laboratory of imec (Interuniversity Microelectronics Center) in Leuven (Belgium) visited the Laser and Photonics Applications group as part of the activities planned in the ERC Attostructura project.
Kevin Dorney offered us the seminar entitled “Imec’s AttoLab: Bridging the Gap Between Fundamental Ultrafast EUV Science and Practical Metrologies for the Semiconductor Industry” in which he spoke of the laboratory that they have built in the imec facilities, the infrastructure that forms it and the techniques and capabilities they have.
You can see the video of the entire seminar on this page or on our YouTube channel.
Bridging the Gap Between Fundamental Ultrafast EUV Science and Practical Metrologies for the Semiconductor Industry
High-harmonic generation (HHG) is nature’s most extreme nonlinear process known to date and, for just over 30 years, it has enabled the realization of table-top, short-pulsed extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray sources that are currently defining new paradigms in functional, nanoscale spectroscopy and imaging.
After decades of combined theoretical and experimental efforts, the underlying mechanism of gas-phase HHG is well understood and it is now known that the quantum physics behind the HHG process can be exploited to tailor the spectral, temporal, spatial, and angular momentum properties of the emitted short-wavelength light. In parallel, advancements in HHG system design have now resulted in robust, bright, and near turn-key systems for producing tunable, coherent EUV light for advanced metrology applications. In this light, imec has recently installed and commissioned the imec AttoLab, a first-of-its-kind, ultrafast, HHG-based EUV metrology and lithography lab with primary aims of performing high-NA EUV lithography and ultrafast materials characterization.
In this talk, Dr. Kevin Dorney will give an overview of imec’s AttoLab, its infrastructure, and the current and foreseen ultrafast spectromicroscopies that will be deployed for characterization of novel semiconductor materials. In addition to spectroscopy and imaging capabilities, the lithographic capabilities of AttoLab will be presented, as well as the first interference lithography results obtained with a 13.5 nm, HHG-based EUV system. Finally, Dr. Kevin Dorney will give some perspectives and outlook on how HHG-based light sources can further benefit semiconductor metrology and lithography, in particular to the use of structured EUV light for advanced inspection and metrology of devices and materials.
Seminar’s poster can be downloaded here.
The video of the seminar will be available on the Youtube account of the Laser and Fotonica Applications group once seminar ends.
Presenter bio
Kevin Dorney is a postdoctoral researcher and MSCA fellow in AttoLab at imec in Leuven, Belgium. He received B.S. degrees in Biology and Chemistry (2012) as well as an M.S. in Chemistry (2014) from Wright State University (Ohio, USA). In 2019, he earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics under the supervision of Profs. Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn in JILA at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in the HHG-based generation of structured EUV beams with tailored spin and orbital angular momentum. His current research interests involve the deployment of bright, coherent 13.5 nm EUV light from HHG systems to investigate the ultrafast radiochemistry of the EUV exposure mechanism in photoresists, as well as their use in lithographic processes for resist screening and advanced metrologies to facilitate learning cycles as the semiconductor industry transitions to high-NA EUV lithography.
Andrés Sanz Garcia from the Laser and Photonics Applications Group, will give the seminar entitled “Femto-biomimetics: New avenues in fabrication of 3D culture models” on October 10 at 12:30.
The seminar will take place in the seminar room in the basement of the Trilingue Building. at the University of Salamanca.