Optical lithography for nanotechnology

Donis G. Flagello; Bill Arnold

doi:10.1117/12.683305

31 August 2006 Optical lithography for nanotechnology

Donis G. Flagello, Bill Arnold

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6327, Nanoengineering: Fabrication, Properties, Optics, and Devices III; 63270D (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.683305
Event: SPIE Optics + Photonics, 2006, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Optical lithography is continually evolving to meet the ever demanding requirements of the micro - and nano- technology communities. Since the optical exposure systems used in lithography are some of the most advanced and complex optical instruments ever built, they involve ever more complex illuminator designs, nearly aberration free lenses, and hyper numerical apertures approaching unity and beyond. Fortunately, the lithography community has risen to the challenge by devising many inventive optical systems and various methods to use and optimize exposure systems. The recent advancement of water immersion technology into lithography for 193nm wavelengths has allowed the numerical aperture (NA) of lithographic lenses to exceed 1.0 or a hyper-NA region. This allows resolution limits to extend to the 45nm node and beyond with NA>1.3. At these extreme NAs, the imaging within the photoresist is accomplished by not only using water immersion but also using polarized light lithography. This paper will review the current state-of-the-art in immersion, hyper-NA lithography. We show the latest results and discuss the various phenomena that may arise using these systems. Furthermore, we show some of the advanced image optimization techniques that allow lithographic printing at the physical limits of resolution. In addition, we show that the future of optical lithography is likely to go well beyond the 30nm regime using advancements in 193nm double-patterning technology and/or the use of extreme ultra-violet (EUV) optical systems.

Citation Download Citation

Donis G. Flagello and Bill Arnold "Optical lithography for nanotechnology", Proc. SPIE 6327, Nanoengineering: Fabrication, Properties, Optics, and Devices III, 63270D (31 August 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.683305

PROCEEDINGS
12 PAGES

DOWNLOAD PAPER SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

CITATIONS

Cited by 3 scholarly publications.

Explore citations on Lens.org

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Get copyright permission Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace

KEYWORDS

Lithography

Extreme ultraviolet

Optical lithography

Photoresist materials

193nm lithography

Fiber optic illuminators

Reticles

Show All Keywords

RELATED CONTENT

Current development status of HSFET (High NA Small Field Exposure...
Proceedings of SPIE (March 18 2016)

New methodologies for lower-K1 EUV OPC and RET optimization
Proceedings of SPIE (March 24 2017)

Water immersion optical lithography for the 45-nm node
Proceedings of SPIE (June 26 2003)

Evolution as applied to optical lithography
Proceedings of SPIE (November 27 2007)

C quad polarized illumination for back end thin wire ...
Proceedings of SPIE (March 16 2009)

Polarization effects associated with hyper-numerical aperture (NA>1) lithography
Proceedings of SPIE (January 27 2005)

Optical lithography in the sub-50-nm regime
Proceedings of SPIE (May 28 2004)

Subscribe to Digital Library

Receive Erratum Email Alert

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years