EUV source development for AIMS and blank inspection

Blackborow, Paul A.; Partlow, M.; Horne, Stephen F.; Besen, M.; Smith, Douglas L.; Gustafson, Deborah

doi:10.1117/12.846559

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The increase in dispersion comes from the fact that the nominal pitch of the zoneplate is decreased relative to an equivalent NA on-axis zoneplate. While this is of little concern for synchrotron implementations, it poses significant challenges for application of the technique using stand-alone sources [7][8][9].…”

Section: System Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical modeling of Fresnel zoneplate microscopes

2011

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Defect free masks remain as one of the most significant challenges facing the commercialization of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Progress on this front requires high performance wavelengthspecific metrology of EUV masks including high resolution and aerial-image microscopy performed near 13.5-nm wavelength. Arguably the most cost effective and rapid path to proliferating this capability is through the development of Fresnel zoneplate based microscopes. Given the relative obscurity of such systems, however, modeling tools are not necessarily optimized to deal with them and their imaging properties are poorly understood.Here we present a modeling methodology to analyze zoneplate microscopes based on commercially available optical modeling software and use the technique to investigate the imaging performance of an off-axis EUV microscope design. The modeling predicts that superior performance can be achieved by tilting the zoneplate, making it perpendicular to the chief ray at the center of the field, while designing the zoneplate to explicitly work in that tilted plane.Although the examples presented here are in the realm of EUV mask inspection, the methods described and analysis results are broadly applicable to zoneplate microscopes in general including full field soft-x-ray microscopes routinely used in the synchrotron community.

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Section: System Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical modeling of Fresnel zoneplate microscopes

2011

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“…For the key question of spatial stability of the target plasma, we refer to published measurements [5],showing spatial stability in the few micron range.…”

Section: The Laser-heated Pinchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By exploiting the demonstrated reliability and stability of the EQ-10 xenon plasma [5] issues of target stability and of optics contamination are completely avoided. We first present this approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High brightness electrodeless Z-Pinch EUV source for mask inspection tools

et al. 2012

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Energetiq Technology has been shipping the EQ-10 Electrodeless Z-pinchTM light source since 1995[1]. The source is currently being used for metrology, mask inspection, and resist development [2,3,4]. Energetiq's higher brightness source has been selected as the source for pre-production actinic mask inspection tools. This improved source enables the mask inspection tool suppliers to build prototype tools with capabilities of defect detection and review down to 16nm design rules.In this presentation we will present new source technology being developed at Energetiq to address the critical source brightness issue. The new technology will be shown to be capable of delivering brightness levels sufficient to meet the HVM requirements of AIMS and ABI and potentially API tools. The basis of the source technology is to use the stable pinch of the electrodeless light source and have a brightness of up to 100W/mm^2-sr. We will explain the source design concepts, discuss the expected performance and present the modeling results for the new design.

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Improvements in the EQ-10 electrodeless Z-pinch EUV source for metrology applications

et al. 2011

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Now that EUV lithography systems are beginning to ship into the fabs for next generation chips it is more critical that the EUV infrastructure developments are keeping pace. Energetiq Technology has been shipping the EQ-10 Electrodeless Z-pinch TM light source since 2005 1 . The source is currently being used for metrology, mask inspection, and resist development 234 . These applications require especially stable performance in both power and source size 5 .Over the last 5 years Energetiq has made many source modifications which have included better thermal management as well as high pulse rate operation 6 . Recently we have further increased the system power handling and electrical pulse reproducibility. The impact of these modifications on source performance will be reported.

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EUV source development for AIMS and blank inspection

Cited by 4 publications

References 4 publications

Optical modeling of Fresnel zoneplate microscopes

Optical modeling of Fresnel zoneplate microscopes

High brightness electrodeless Z-Pinch EUV source for mask inspection tools

Improvements in the EQ-10 electrodeless Z-pinch EUV source for metrology applications

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