Under the guidance of Prof. Wim Goedheer and Dr Dimitry Lopaev (Moscow State University), Dmitry Astakhov developed a powerful numerical model for EUV-induced plasmas.
Understanding of the behavior of low pressure, low density plasmas is of industrial relevance: they are useful for on-line removal of different forms of contaminations from multilayer mirrors, which increases the throughput of EUV lithography. The model developed by Dmitry concerns a 2D axially symmetric particle-in-cell code, and allows the full geometry of an axially symmetric chamber to be taken into account. Therefore, a quantitative connection between different experimental data, such as discharge characteristics and plasma parameters, could be established: a powerful approach for understanding experimental data. Dmitry successfully obtained his degree from Prof. Fred Bijkerk at the University of Twente.
