STROBE Seminar: Dr. Kevin Fahey, ‘Leveraging the Extreme Ultraviolet: Extending Correlative Microscopy into Industrial Applications, the Time Domain, and More’

In the last century and defining the first two decades of this one, the development of novel materials and manufacturing processes has demanded the advancement of new characterization techniques. This characterization leveraged light in its many rich forms: While optical probes proved tractable in the first half of this timeframe, it took the emergence of synchrotrons and other X-ray sources and optics to penetrate matter and move to higher photon energies. Only in the very recent past, however, have innovators been able to successfully utilize the Vacuum region of the spectrum (VUV, EUV, and Soft X-ray) effectively in the laboratory. This long-overlooked region of the spectrum is proving to be a rich and promising probe for practical materials and devices—filling a void in the existing characterization and imaging space.

In this talk, we will discuss the advent of Coherent EUV light as the next technique to complement this correlative suite of instruments. Uniquely merging diffractive imaging, spectroscopic, and time-resolved measurements enables key applications that will unlock new avenues ranging from Semiconductor metrology, fundamental materials and device characterization. We will discuss how it takes a diverse and extensive team to bring such technology from an idea to impact. More importantly, we will discuss the evolution of a technology that has been taken from the limited confines of the Synchrotron community to very soon becoming a laboratory instrument available to augment the rich tool suite now relied upon by academic researchers and industrial microscopists alike.