Quantitative aberration assessment by a through focal analysis of pattern edge sharpness

Xieqing Zhu; Eric Munro; John A. Rouse; Haoning Liu; Warren K. Waskiewicz

doi:10.1117/12.370138

15 November 1999 Quantitative aberration assessment by a through focal analysis of pattern edge sharpness

Xieqing Zhu, Eric Munro, John A. Rouse, Haoning Liu, Warren K. Waskiewicz

Proceedings Volume 3777, Charged Particle Optics IV; (1999) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.370138
Event: SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1999, Denver, CO, United States

Abstract

In computing the optical properties of electron and ion beam columns, the actual beam blur needs to be obtained from the computed aberration coefficients of the column and the beam parameters. A traditional method, which has successfully been used for many years, computes aberration disks for each individual aberration and obtains overall beam blur by adding these disks in quadrature. However, this method gives no information of beam current densities to compare with experimental measurements. A study of a new simulation method for analyzing pattern edge sharpness is described in this paper. The method involves the simulation of the point spread function ('PSF'), which can be proven to be equivalent to the pattern edge sharpness, provided that the PSF is smaller than the pattern feature. This method provides the current density distribution of the PSF and a quantitative assessment of the aberration, defined in terms of the rise distance of the PSF, in a through-focal series of planes, thereby enabling the best focus plane to be determined. An illustrative example is presented for a typical SCALPEL^TM column.

Citation Download Citation

Xieqing Zhu, Eric Munro, John A. Rouse, Haoning Liu, and Warren K. Waskiewicz "Quantitative aberration assessment by a through focal analysis of pattern edge sharpness", Proc. SPIE 3777, Charged Particle Optics IV, (15 November 1999); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.370138

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