In a vacuum chamber inside this machine, tin is melted until it becomes a liquid. That molten tin is then dropped down into the chamber in a continuous stream. In the midway point of their cascade, each of these tiny droplets is zapped twice by pulse lasers, provided by German company Trumpf, which are powerful enough to cut through metal. These bursts heat the tin up to a million degrees, transforming it into a kind of plasma that simultaneously creates a burst of EUV light. This pinpoint smashing of molecules happens 50,000 times per second, so fast that the stream of tin droplets and the
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