Measurement technique for in situ characterizing aberrations of projection optics in lithographic tools

Appl Opt. 2006 Aug 20;45(24):6086-93. doi: 10.1364/ao.45.006086.

Abstract

As the feature size decreases, degradation of image quality caused by wavefront aberrations of projection optics in lithographic tools has become a serious problem in the low-k1 process. We propose a novel measurement technique for in situ characterizing aberrations of projection optics in lithographic tools. Considering the impact of the partial coherence illumination, we introduce a novel algorithm that accurately describes the pattern displacement and focus shift induced by aberrations. Employing the algorithm, the measurement condition is extended from three-beam interference to two-, three-, and hybrid-beam interferences. The experiments are performed to measure the aberrations of projection optics in an ArF scanner.