Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7595931?dq=5179747
Timestamp: 2014-07-31 06:06:06
Document Index: 776729195

Matched Legal Cases: ['Application No. 60', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 2000', 'Application No. 04000525', 'Application No. 04000525', 'Application No. 200400111', 'Application No. 200410001918', 'Application No. 04000525', 'Application No. 200400111', 'Application No. 200400111', 'Application No. 2004001', 'Application No. 04000512', 'Application No. 2004', 'Application No. 200400111']

Patent US7595931 - Grating for EUV lithographic system aberration measurement - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign in<nobr>Advanced Patent Search</nobr>PatentsA grating includes an absorptive substrate and a plurality of reflective lines on the absorptive substrate. Each reflective line is formed by a plurality of reflective areas. The reflective areas can be arranged in a regular pattern. The reflective areas are between 70 nm and 120 nm in diameter. The...http://www.google.com/patents/US7595931?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7595931 - Grating for EUV lithographic system aberration measurementAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7595931 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 11/037,178Publication dateSep 29, 2009Filing dateJan 19, 2005Priority dateJan 15, 2003Fee statusPaidAlso published asUS6867846, US20040145714, US20050146700, WO2004066366A2, WO2004066366A3Publication number037178, 11037178, US 7595931 B2, US 7595931B2, US-B2-7595931, US7595931 B2, US7595931B2InventorsSherman K. PoultneyOriginal AssigneeAsml Holding N.V.Export CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (70), Non-Patent Citations (47), Classifications (14), Legal Events (2) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetGrating for EUV lithographic system aberration measurementUS 7595931 B2Abstract A grating includes an absorptive substrate and a plurality of reflective lines on the absorptive substrate. Each reflective line is formed by a plurality of reflective areas. The reflective areas can be arranged in a regular pattern. The reflective areas are between 70 nm and 120 nm in diameter. The reflective areas can be circular. The reflective areas can have a random height distribution.
1. A grating used for measuring a wavefront in a lithographic system, comprising:
an absorptive substrate; and
a plurality of reflective lines on the absorptive substrate, each reflective line formed by a plurality of reflective areas, the reflective areas arranged in a regular patterns,
wherein a pitch of the grating is chosen to substantially eliminate interference between plus and minus first order images.
2. The grating of claim 1, wherein the reflective areas are between 70 nm and 120 nm in diameter.
3. The grating of claim 1, wherein the reflective areas are circular.
4. The grating of claim 1, wherein the reflective areas have a random height distribution.
5. The grating of claim 1, wherein the regular pattern is a matrix pattern.
6. The grating of claim 1, wherein the grating is configured to measure a quality parameter of the wavefront in the lithographic system.
7. The grating of claim 6, wherein the grating is configured to measure the quality parameter of the wavefront during wafer production.
8. The grating of claim 6, wherein the grating is configured to measure the quality parameter of the wavefront when imaging is not being performed.
9. A grating used for measuring a wavefront in a lithographic system, comprising:
a plurality of reflective lines on the substrate, each reflective line formed by a plurality of reflective areas, the reflective areas arranged in a matrix pattern,
10. The grating of claim 9, wherein the reflective areas are between 70 nm and 120 nm in diameter.
11. The grating of claim 9, wherein the reflective areas are circular.
12. The grating of claim 9, wherein the reflective areas have a random height distribution.
13. The grating of claim 9, wherein the substrate is absorptive.
14. A grating used for measuring a wavefront in a lithographic system, comprising:
a plurality of reflective lines on the substrate, each reflective line formed by a plurality of reflective areas, the reflective areas having a random height distribution,
15. The grating of claim 14, wherein the reflective areas are between 70 nm and 120 nm in diameter.
16. The grating of claim 14, wherein the reflective areas are circular.
17. The grating of claim 14, wherein the substrate is absorptive.
18. The grating of claim 14, wherein the reflective areas are arranged in a regular pattern.
19. The grating of claim 14, wherein the reflective areas are arranged in a matrix pattern.
20. The grating of claim 14, wherein the reflective areas are arranged in a random pattern.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/753,557, filed Jan. 9, 2004, entitled TAILORED REFLECTING DIFFRACTOR FOR EUV LITHOGRAPHIC SYSTEM ABERRATION MEASUREMENT, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,867,846 B2, issued Mar. 15, 2005, which in turn claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/440,051, filed Jan. 15, 2003, entitled TAILORED REFLECTING DIFFRACTOR FOR EUV LITHOGRAPHIC SYSTEM ABERRATION MEASUREMENT, which is incorporated by reference herein.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is directed to a grating for EUV lithographic system aberration measurement that substantially obviates one or more of the problems and disadvantages of the related art.
An embodiment of the present invention includes a grating with an absorptive substrate and a plurality of reflective lines on the absorptive substrate. Each reflective line is formed by a plurality of reflective areas. The reflective areas can be arranged in a regular pattern. The reflective areas are between 70 nm and 120 nm in diameter. The reflective areas can be circular. The reflective areas can have a random height distribution.
FIGS. 6-11 illustrate examples of interference fringes seen at the focal plane with the use of the present invention.
FIG. 13 illustrates an example of interference fringes seen at the focal plane with the use of the reflecting dots of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is another illustration of the wavefront measurement apparatus of the present invention, particularly as it can be incorporated into a photolithographic system. The source module 103 is placed on the reticle stage (not shown), and includes a linear source module grating 203. The wavefront sensor (or sensor module 106) is placed on the wafer stage (not shown) and includes a sensor module grating 201 (which may be a linear grating or a 2-D checkerboard grating) and a CCD detector 202 that is positioned below the sensor module grating 201. The projection optics (PO) 104 remain the same as during normal exposure operation, and are abstracted as a single element in FIG. 2 to simplify the figure.
Another embodiment of the sensor module grating 201 is a cross grating, as shown in FIG. 3A, such that two linear gratings of an appropriate pitch are essentially placed one on top of another, with each grating having the appropriate pitch dimension to result in a wavefront shear equivalent to that of the checkerboard configuration. It is believed, however, that the checkerboard grating gives best results.
It will also be appreciated that although the discussion above is primarily in terms of an EUV photolithography system, where reflective optical elements are typically used (such as the source module grating 203, the projection optics 104, and the imaging optics), the invention is equally applicable to other wavelengths used in the photolithographic system, with appropriate transmissive/refractive components used in place of reflective ones, as appropriate.
FIG. 5 is another illustration of the wavefront measurement system of the present invention, showing the source module 103 positioned in the object plane (reticle 102 plane, not labeled in the figures) and the projection optics 104. An image shearing grating 203 is positioned on the reticle stage, and generates multiple wavefronts that are then detected in the sensor module 106.
FIG. 6 illustrates the wavefront fringes (312 in FIG. 3B) as seen by the CCD detector 202. As shown in FIG. 6, in the upper right-hand photograph, sheared fringes for a single object space slit are shown, where the slit is positioned in front of an incoherent, diffuse source that fills the maximum numerical aperture and smoothes any wavefront inhomogeneities. The bottom right-hand figure shows a single fringe visibility function 601, with zeroth order and first order diffraction patterns 602. The 50% duty cycle on the grating 203 makes all even orders of the diffraction pattern invisible. At the bottom left of FIG. 6, the image space shearing grating 201 is shown, with a shear ratio of 0.5.
FIGS. 7-11 illustrate the wavefronts as seen by the CCD detector 202, for different shear ratios. In these figures, A designates the fringes seen at the detector, 601 designates the fringe visibility function (for a single slit), and 602 designates the fringe visibility function (for multiple slits). In FIG. 7, the shear ratio is 0.5.
A particular problem that frequently exists in many EUV photolithographic systems is that the EUV source does not provide uniform illumination intensity, but instead has a number of facets, or hot spots, that result from use of fly's eye lenses in the optics of the EUV source. This results in a non-uniform wavefront at the input NA pupil of the PO 104, or sometimes, in underfilled numerical aperture (NA) of the PO. For example, the particular system of one embodiment of the present invention has an input numerical aperture of 0.0625 for the projection optics 104, and an output numerical aperture of 0.25. Thus, it is desirable to be able to eliminate the underfilling and intensity nonuniformity at the input NA of the PO 104. Note that the problems discussed above affect the measurement of the wavefront by the wavefront sensor discussed above.
In one embodiment, the diameter of the dots, for the parameters discussed above (6.4 μm for 4� magnification, 0.25 output NA, 0.0625 input NA, 13.5 nm source) is between 70 and 120 nm, preferably close to 70 nm.
It will be appreciated that with the use of the reflecting dots of the present invention, the single diffraction pattern, as shown in FIG. 10, for example, becomes a diffraction pattern within a diffraction pattern. Thus, each reflecting dot becomes a wavefront source, as viewed from the focal plane. Therefore, irregularities in intensity, particularly due to fly's eye facets of the source, will disappear, presenting a clean, regular image of the source at the focal plane. The reflecting dot pattern of the grating 203 also has the advantage that it overfills the 0.0625 NA of the projection optics, and utilizes as much light that is incident onto the grating 203 as possible. Furthermore, no additional pupil facets or pupil structure is introduced if illumination is spatially incoherent. The reflecting dot grating shown in FIG. 12 can be fabricated on a standard reticle blank. The dot diameter is preferably chosen to more than overfill the numerical aperture, so as to provide near-uniform pupil illumination.
When the dots are placed randomly within the grating lines, speckle appears in the fringe pattern, and a bright spot in the center of the diffraction pattern also appears. The bright center can be eliminated by making the dots of random height, with a standard deviation of many times a wavelength (i.e., an optical path difference of many times π plus a fraction). When the dots are placed in a regular pattern, the overlapping fringe artifacts in the fringe plane can also be eliminated by making the dots of random height with an optical path difference standard deviation of many times π (but at the price of causing speckle). However, the fringe artifacts may have less impact on fringe analysis.
FIG. 13 illustrates an example of interference fringes seen at the focal plane with the use of the reflecting dots of the present invention. FIG. 13 is generally similar in nature to FIGS. 6-11. The object space grating has a pitch of 433 the pitch of image space grating in FIG. 13. Also, 601 refers to a single slit coherence function, and 602 refers to a multiple slit coherence function.
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C., "White Light Extended Source Shearing Interferometer," Applied Optics, vol. 13, No. 1, Jan. 1974, pp. 200-202.Classifications U.S. Classification359/572, 359/573, 359/576, 359/350International ClassificationG06K7/10, G02B5/18, G01J9/02, G03F7/20Cooperative ClassificationG01J9/0215, G03F7/706, G02B5/1838European ClassificationG03F7/70L6B, G01J9/02D, G02B5/18HLegal EventsDateCodeEventDescriptionMar 14, 2013FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 4Jan 19, 2005ASAssignmentOwner name: ASML HOLDING N.V., NETHERLANDSFree format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:POULTNEY, SHERMAN K.;REEL/FRAME:016199/0221Effective date: 20040108RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services©2012 Google