UVSOLAR Ultra-Violet supercontinuum sources and pulsed lasers for the solar cell and semiconductor industry
| High brightness supercontinuum and tunable UV lasers have a wide range of applications in scientific and industrial markets including solar cell and semiconductor manufacturing, microscopy and lithography. Current supercontinuum lasers are limited to the visible and infrared spectral regions. Adding Vacuum UV below 200 nm (VUV) to the spectral range of these sources opens new important application areas in manufacturing and optical analysis. In a previous project by NKT, DTU, and DFM (UVSUPER), a novel approach was taken using an NKT-patented hollow-core optical fiber. Pressurizing this fiber with the noble gas argon and pumping it with short high-energy pulses allowed the generation of a broadband supercontinuum inside the hollow-core with a spectrum that reached down to 200 nm. In UVSOLAR we aim at: (1) improving the TRL level of the existing solution to TRL7 and extend the spectrum to Vacuum UV (VUV) 150 nm by using other noble gasses and by maturing the pump compression of the UV-module, the high pulse-energy fiber coupling, and the gas cell stability and pressure control; (2) demonstrating the added value of the laser system compared to existing supercontinuum and UV lasers in a number of key high-end commercial applications. These demonstrations include thin film solar cell scribing (Sunplugged), silicon solar cell laser doping (Topsil), DUV and VUV microscopy and scatterometry (DeltaPix and DFM) and semiconductor processing (3D Micromatic and KLA-Tencor - LoI) |
Key figures
Period:
2023 - 2026
Funding year:
2022
Own financial contribution:
7.94 mio. DKK
Grant:
20.38 mio. DKK
Funding rate:
72 %
Project budget:
28.32 mio. DKK
Participants
NKT PHOTONICS A/S (Main Responsible)
Partners and economy
| Partner | Subsidy | Auto financing |
|---|---|---|
| Dansk Fundamental Metrologi A/S | 3,21 mio. DKK | 2,14 mio. DKK |
| NKT PHOTONICS A/S | 3,66 mio. DKK | 3,66 mio. DKK |
| Topsil GlobalWafers A/S | 0,18 mio. DKK | |
| DeltaPix | 0,51 mio. DKK | 0,34 mio. DKK |
| Danmarks Tekniske Universitet | 8,11 mio. DKK | 0,90 mio. DKK |
| Aarhus Universitet | 4,09 mio. DKK | 0,45 mio. DKK |
| SunPlugged | 0,80 mio. DKK | 0,27 mio. DKK |
