Robust liquid metal collector mirror for EUV and soft X-ray plasma sources

Recent work in UCD has centred on the development of a liquid metal coating process for EUV and soft X-ray collector optics. The work involves using a room temperature liquid metal coated on a solid metal substrate of the appropriate form. The advances made demonstrate that a stable thin coating film on the interior surface of a rotating optic substrate is possible, and this offers promise as a solution to the problem of producing an atomically flat reflector that remains unspoiled in front of a multi-kilowatt EUV plasma. We report on the results of preliminary EUV tests carried out on a simple focusing liquid metal mirror.