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In Science, One Thing Leads to Another…

By Shlomo Maital  

Lawrence Livermore Labs fusion

         For decades, scientists have pursued the goal of replicating the virtually endless source of energy found in our Sun – fusion,  the fusing of hydrogen atoms, producing helium and releasing vast amounts of energy.  H-bombs do this, of course – but use fusion for destruction, not for construction.  Fusion is clean energy par excellence and infinite in quantity.

          Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratoy in the US have finally succeeded in a key first step – ignition.  Using powerful lasers to focus an energy beam at hydrogen, they have created fusion – and most important, gotten (in one experiment) twice as much energy created by the fusion, as the energy they needed to ignite it, by powering the lasers.  This is a big deal. 

          But in a TED talk, Livermore scientist Tammy Ma said just in passing, that the laser technology developed for this purpose actually led to another unexpected, unplanned, unanticipated benefit – more powerful, smaller computer chips, through extreme ultraviolet lithography.

          How come?

           “Extreme ultraviolet lithography is a technology used in the semiconductor industry for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs). It is a type of photolithography that uses 13.5 nanometer extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light from a laser-pulsed tin plasma to create intricate patterns on semiconductor substrates.    ASML Holding is the only company that produces and sells such systems for chip production, targeting 5 nanometer (nm) and 3 nm process nodes.”

          Note:  A single atom is between 0.1 and 0.5 nanometers in width.  So, the EUV technology, originating from fusion research, is now creating chips with detail down to the width of 6 individual atoms! 

           In life, and especially in science, one thing leads to another.  The EUV technology arose because at Lawrence Livermore, it was necessary to focus the laser beam on a very very very small space, hydrogen atoms.  And, whoops…turns out to be useful in etching transistors on silicon.

         Who knew!?