The familiar, colorful electric glow of neon signs can transform into a powerful – and invisible – tool for making leading-edge microchips by adding small amounts of other simple gases. They’re called excimer lasers because the light is emitted by excited dimers of two molecules (Figure 1).
They generate particular wavelengths of light in the deep ultra violet (DUV) spectrum, which has wavelengths even shorter that those produced by the sun. These lasers are used to help pattern the circuiting of microchips, band layers of transistors together, and even correct our vision.
Excimer laser gas mixtures are a combination of rare gases (argon, krypton, xenon, or neon) and halogen gases (fluorine or chlorine). The mixture of gases determines the wavelength of DUV light produced. Argon+fluorine+neon (193nm) and Krypton+fluorine+neon (248nm) are the two most common mixtures used. In terms of volume; neon makes up approximately 96–97.5% of the mixture.
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