DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-17 and 19-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Illerbi et al. (DE 102017213172 A1, Machine Translation) in view of Park et al. (US 20190348274 A1).
As to claim 1, Illerbi discloses a method of depositing an outer layer on a surface of a reflective optical element for the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelength range [Abstract; Fig. 1].
Illerbi is directed to forming a reflective coating 5 by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on a protective layer 4 [pg. 5, para. 10] of an optical element for the EUV wavelength range [Abstract; Fig. 1], where the coating 5 comprises carbon, silicon, tin, titanium, and/or zirconium [claim 5, claim 8], and is formed through cycles of ALD to a final thickness of less than 2 nanometers, or less than 1 nanometer [pg. 6, para. 7].
Illerbi fails to explicitly disclose:
wherein the depositing is effected in at least one macro cycle comprising:
- at least partly depositing the outer layer with an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process in at least one ALD cycle and
- partly back-etching the outer layer, wherein said back-etching is conducted with a dry etching process.
However, Park discloses a method for forming a thin film of zirconium oxide [Abstract, claim 5], comprising:
wherein the depositing is effected in at least one macro cycle comprising:
- at least partly depositing the outer layer with an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process in at least one ALD cycle [claim 1, claim 4; Fig. 3; Fig. 11], and
- partly back-etching the outer layer, wherein said back-etching is conducted with a dry etching process [claim 1, claim 7; Fig. 3; Fig. 13].
Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of forming a thin film cover layer on a reflective coating of an optical element, of Illiberi, to include the method of forming a thin film by performing cycles of ALD/ALE, of Park, in order to control the thickness of the formed thin film, as taught by Park [Abstract, claim 1].
As to claim 2, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein a final thickness (d) of the outer layer is less than 4 nm [pg. 6, para. 7].
As to claim 3, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the final thickness (d) of the outer layer is less than 1 nm [pg. 6, para. 7].
As to claim 4, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the surface of the reflective optical element has a protective layer 4 on which the outer layer is deposited [pg. 5, para. 10].
As to claim 5, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the protective layer consists at least partly of a precious metal [pg. 5, para. 10].
As to claim 6, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose:
wherein the macro cycles number 2 or more.
However, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the steps of ALD and ALE, of Park [claim 1; claim 4, claim 7], to include repeating the ALD and ALE steps, in order to more finely tune or otherwise to optimize the thickness of the final layer, with predictable results.
Furthermore, “where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation.” See MPEP § 2144.05, II.
As to claim 7, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 6, wherein the macro cycles number 10 or more [Park, claim 1; claim 4, claim 7].
Here, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the steps of ALD and ALE, of Park [claim 1; claim 4, claim 7], to include repeating the ALD and ALE steps, in order to more finely tune or otherwise to optimize the thickness of the final layer, with predictable results.
Furthermore, “where the general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation.” See MPEP § 2144.05, II.
As to claim 8, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the ALD cycles per macro cycle number between 1 and 100 [Park, claim 4, claim 7].
As to claim 9, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the ALD cycles per macro cycle number between 10 and 100 [Park, claim 4, claim 7].
As to claim 10, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the outer layer consists at least partly of at least one oxide [Park, claim 5].
As to claim 11, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the at least one oxide is selected from the group consisting essentially of: SiO2, TiOx and ZrO2 [Park, claim 5].
As to claim 12, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said back-etching is conducted with a reactive ion etching process and/or with an atomic layer etching process [Park, claim 1].
As to claim 13, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said at least partly depositing of the outer layer is effected with the atomic layer deposition process in at least one ALD region and said partly back-etching is effected in at least one etching region spatially separated from the at least one ALD region [Park, claim 12; Fig. 3].
As to claim 14, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the atomic layer etching process is conducted as a spatial atomic layer etching process [Park, Fig. 3, Fig. 13].
As to claim 15, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the atomic layer deposition process is conducted as a spatial atomic layer deposition process [Park, Fig. 3, Fig. 11].
As to claim 16, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 15, wherein said depositing is effected with a processing head having
- a processing surface 50 [Park, Fig. 3] and
- feed channels 132/131 with which process media (P,C,A) and inert gas (I) are fed to the processing surface [Park, Fig. 3], and
- drain channels with which reaction products (R), the process media (P,CA) and the inert gas (1) are drained from the processing surface [Park, Fig. 3, para. 0067, “pumping unit (not shown)”], where the ALD regions and the at least one etching region are provided spatially separately along the processing surface with the inert gas (1) [Park, Fig. 3].
As to claim 17, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 16, but fails to explicitly disclose:
wherein said partly back-etching is effected with a plasma source based on a dielectric barrier discharge.
Here, Park discloses a remote plasma source comprising an E-beam supply part for radicalizing the surface processing gas in the ALE step [para. 0082].
Therefore, it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the E-beam remote plasma source, of Park, to include other conventional remote plasma sources such as a dielectric barrier discharge, in order to provide a suitable radicalization source for the ALE step of Park, with predictable results. See MPEP 2143, A.
As to claim 19, modified Illiberi discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said depositing of the outer layer is effected on a subregion of the surface of the reflective optical element [Park, claim 1].
As to claim 20, modified Illiberi discloses a reflective optical element for the EUV wavelength range, wherein the reflective optical element has a surface having an outer layer [Illiberi, Abstract], where the outer layer is deposited by a method as claimed in claim 1 [Park, claim 1].
As to claim 21, modified Illiberi discloses an EUV lithography system comprising at least one reflective optical element as claimed in claim 20 [Illiberi, Abstract].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 18 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of record fails to fairly teach or suggest, alone or in combination, the feature of “wherein the surface of the reflective optical element is curved and the processing surface of the processing head has a shape matched to the curved surface of the reflective optical element.”, as recited in claim 18, and in conjunction with claim 16 and claim 1, from which it depends.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: The additionally cited references are cited to show methods of forming protective layers on EUV optical components [Abstracts].
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER M REMAVEGE whose telephone number is (571)270-5511. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 10:00 AM - 3:30 PM.
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/CHRISTOPHER REMAVEGE/Examiner, Art Unit 1713
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