In situ aberration measurement technique based on multi-illumination settings and principal component analysis of aerial images

The impact of lens aberrations becomes severe when the critical dimensions (CDs) shrink. The accurate measurement of both low- and high-order Zernike aberrations is important during a photolithographic process. Based on the multi-illumination settings and principal component analysis of aerial images, a novel in situ aberration measurement technique that can accurately measure all the Zernike aberrations, except for the sinusoidal 2-θ and sinusoidal 4-θ terms (under polar coordinates, and Z 1 to Z 4 are not considered) is proposed in this letter. The estimated maximum error of the Zernike aberrations ranges from 0.43 to 0.78 mλ when the amplitudes of the Zernike coefficients range from -20 to 20 mλ. The standard and root mean square errors are both in the range from 0.14 to 0.4 mλ.     

基于空间像自适应降噪的投影物镜波像差检测方法

提出了一种基于空间像自适应降噪的投影物镜波像差检测方法。通过对空间像进行统计分析,获取空间像的噪声模型和噪声标准差模型。以噪声标准差为权重因子,利用加权最小二乘法对空间像进行主成分分解,可以实现对空间像的自适应、无损降噪,从而得到更为精确的主成分系数和泽尼克系数。使用光刻仿真软件PROLITH的仿真结果表明,在相同的噪声水平下,0.1λ像差幅值内,与基于空间像主成分分析的波像差检测技术相比,精度提高30%以上。在使用光刻实验平台测量Z8调整量的实验中,该方法的精度更高。