Development status of electron guns for excimer light sources in the vacuum ultra violet

Abstract

In the frame of a joint 3 year program, supported by the Bayerische Forschungs Stiftung BFS, the 4 partners, TuiLaser AG, Germering/Munich; Thales Electron Devices GmbH, Ulm; the Technische Universitat Munchen, Garching/Munich and the GSF-Forschungszentrum fur Gesundheit und Umwelt, Oberschleissheim/Munich, have undertaken to develop "Compact Excimer Light Sources for the Vacuum Ultra Violet and their Application in the Environmental Analytic and Process Control". In this co-development Thales Electron Devices GmbH is responsible to develop and build electron guns for two types of light sources: (a) for a compact and brilliant VUV point source in a volume smaller than 1 mm/sup 3/ (b) for a very small VUV laser with an active volume smaller than 1 mm/sup 2/ /spl times/ 40 mm. The second item requires an electron gun producing a 40 mm broad electron band beam. This is considered to be technologically more complex than the gun for the rotational symmetric electron beam required for the VUV point source and therefore is left for the second half of the program. This paper will report the concept technologies and the results achieved so far for the two electron guns.