Design concepts of a new imaging system for a high-intensity XUV source beam by colour centres excitation in lithium fluoride crystals

Stable colour centre production in lithium fluoride (LiF) crystals can employ as a high-spatial-resolution imaging tool for extreme ultraviolet (XUV) irradiation, as well as the possibility for images of the unfocused beam and the beam focused by a multi-layer mirror. The LiF crystal sensitivity has sufficient to impress high-contrast photo-luminescent patterns with XUV single-pulse irradiation on an area up to 40mm2. The suggested imaging technique, using LiF as a detector, can contribute to reducing the lack of sufficient knowledge for XUV beam characterization and profile featurization which can open a very wide range of XUV metrology and tomography applications. The experimental results explain the concepts of detection of high-intensity source at13.5nm using a YAG:Ce scintillator crystal embedded with a CMOS camera, additionally using LiF as a 2D high-resolution detector, and the work shows investigations outcomes and improvement procedure and analysis. The results demonstrate the potential of LiF crystals as a sub-micrometre resolution two-dimensional imaging tool for XUV irradiation applications. Moreover, the research study explains the optimization sequences of the new imaging technique that will play an important role to predict the achievable spot size, geometry, beam profile and intensity distribution, as well as the characterization complexity of XUV source features.