US Patent Issued to CARL ZEISS SMT on April 29 for "Method for operating an EUV lithography apparatus, and EUV lithography apparatus" (German Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,287,588, issued on April 29, was assigned to CARL ZEISS SMT GMBH (Oberkochen, Germany).

"Method for operating an EUV lithography apparatus, and EUV lithography apparatus" was invented by Moritz Becker (Aalen, Germany) and Dirk Heinrich Ehm (Beckingen, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for operating an EUV lithography apparatus (1) with at least one vacuum housing (27) for at least one reflective optical element (12) includes operating the EUV lithography apparatus in an exposure operating mode (B), in which EUV radiation (5) is radiated into the vacuum housing, wherein a reducing plasma is generated at a surface (12a) of the...