Wavefront engineering: selective aperture illumination for increased depth of focus and super-resolution for photolithography

Abstract

Photolithography has been and is the driving force behind enhancement and miniaturization of computers and their peripherals. Advances in photolithographic processes have enabled modern integrated circuits to have millions of electrical devices on a single, small circuit chip. Diffraction optics plays a central role in the photolithographic process, as during etching, the incoming light passes through a moderate-aperture focusing lens and converges on every point on the chip. Thus, the structure of the electromagnetic field in the focal region is of considerable interest. While techniques such as implantation and deposition processes control the vertical architecture of the integrated circuit chip, the lateral dimensions are defined solely by diffraction optics. The conventional imaging approach has a severe restriction because depth of focus shortens with an increase in resolution. Even though using shorter wavelength light such as deep ultraviolet is helpful, it too is reaching a point where further increase in resolution is necessary while, at the same time, preserving or increasing the depth of focus. Shortening of depth of focus with increase resolution is nonetheless the most severe limitation of photolithography. Thus, reduction in wavelength and increase in numerical aperture are viable options, but this approach has tremendous difficulties. In this study, we present a novel approach to achieve both super-resolution and increased depth of focus through a technique called selective aperture illumination (SAI). In SAI, the incoming light is redistributed by means of an optical element, phase, and attenuation masks. It is shown that both the increased depth focus and super-resolution are achieved by selectively choosing appropriate phase and amplitude at the entrance pupil.

Keywords:

• photolithography
• super-resolution
• depth of focus
• phase mask
• numerical aperture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.