Abstract
In integrated circuits manufacturing, specific structures are used as tools to evaluate the quality of the lithographic process, and the shape of these structures is often described by a few parameters, of which in particular the sidewall angle suffers from considerable inaccuracies. Using scalar diffraction theory, we investigate whether a properly shaped cylindrically focused probing beam could increase the ability to detect tiny changes in this angle in the case of a cliff-like structure, modeled as a phase object. This paper describes the theoretical formulation used to calculate the optimized beam and compares its performance with the case of a focused plane wave.
© 2016 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Xiujie Dou, Changjun Min, Yuquan Zhang, S. F. Pereira, and Xiaocong Yuan
Opt. Express 30(16) 29287-29294 (2022)
Nitish Kumar, Luca Cisotto, Sarathi Roy, Gopika K. P. Ramanandan, Silvania F. Pereira, and H. Paul Urbach
Appl. Opt. 55(16) 4408-4413 (2016)
Q. Y. van den Berg, S. F. Pereira, and H. P. Urbach
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 33(6) 1010-1014 (2016)