Quantum Simulations for Extreme Ultraviolet Photolithography
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.20234 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 23 Feb 2026] Title:Quantum Simulations for Extreme Ultraviolet Photolithography Authors:Tyler D. Kharazi, Stepan Fomichev, Shu Kanno, Takao Kobayashi, Juan Miguel Arrazola, Qi Gao, Torin F. Stetina View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum Simulations for Extreme Ultraviolet Photolithography, by Tyler D. Kharazi and 6 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is the state-of-the-art process in semiconductor fabrication, yet its spatial resolution is fundamentally limited by the ``blur'' originating from absorption of photons at 92 eV, which induce physical and chemical changes in the photoresist via excited state processes and electron cascades. Accurate modeling of these phenomena requires precise ab initio data for high-energy decay channels, specifically photoabsorption and photoelectron emission. These are computationally difficult for classical methods due to prohibitive scaling in simulating electron dynamics, or due to the inability to resolve the ionization continuum in an efficient manner. In this work, we present quantum simulation algorithms to compute these key observables. First, we introduce a coherent time-domain spectroscopy algorithm optimized to resolve the photoabsorption cross-section at the 92 eV operating frequency. Second, we develop a first-quantized plane-wave simulation to compute the photoelectron kinetic energy spectrum, utilizing real-time dynamics and energy windowing to treat bound and delocalized scattering states on equal footing. Additionally, we provide logical resource estimation for a model photoresist monomer, 4-iodo-2-methylphenol (IMePh), and demonstrate that 92 eV absorption sensitivity can be resolved using roughly $200$ logical qubits and $10^{9}$ total non-Clifford gates per circuit with approximately $10^3$ shots for the smallest instance. The more sophisticated photoemission algorithm that models the continuum explicitly, incurs gate costs of $\geq 10^{13}$ total non-Clifford gates per circuit, $10^4$ shots, and requires a few thousand logical qubits. These results establish high-fidelity quantum simulations as a key component to parameterize the multi-scale macroscopic models required to overcome the electron blur bottleneck in semiconductor miniaturization. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.20234 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.20234v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.20234 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Torin Stetina [view email] [v1] Mon, 23 Feb 2026 18:58:43 UTC (1,328 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum Simulations for Extreme Ultraviolet Photolithography, by Tyler D. Kharazi and 6 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)