Laser light source, illuminating optical device, and exposure device

摘要

A light source for an exposure device associated with an optical lithographic system is disclosed. The light source includes a structural body having slots for receiving a plurality of laser elements. The laser elements are modular. Thus, they can be removed and installed separately, which facilitates ease of maintenance. The laser elements have a semiconductor laser that pumps a solid-state laser that is subjected to nonlinear optical crystals that convert the laser beam to smaller wavelength light to produce polarized UV laser light for use in optical lithography. The laser light from each laser element is linearly polarized. The laser elements are located in the structural body in different orientations so as to orient their respective directions of polarization different from each other so as to prevent dissimilar line widths of linear features of lithographically produced substrates that use laser light sources.