To produce the most advanced microchips, you vaporise droplets of molten tin with two successive blasts of a laser. The resulting plasma emits extreme ultraviolet radiation, light with very short wavelengths. Glass lenses absorb too much of the radiation, so mirrors are used instead to guide the light to a silicon wafer and use it to draw transistors with features measuring 5 nanometres or less, the size of just a few atoms.
Read Full Article »
