Thick resist lithography is a rather complicated process, which involves quite a few nonlinear factors, so surface profile is largely affected by process conditions such as baking, exposure and development parameters. In this paper, the photochemical reaction mechanism of the thick diazonaphthoquinone(DNQ)-Novolak based photoresists is discussed in detail, and then the effect of exposure intensity on the photochemical reaction speed is investigated by using kinetic model. Numerical simulation and experimental results are presented and agree well with each other. Through comparison between the simulated and experimental results for thick DNQ-Novolak based resists, the photochemical reaction speed is obviously affected by the intensity magnitude during exposure, which will lead to the failure of exposure reciprocity law. This phenomenon is caused by the increase in temperature of resists, due to the highly exothermic reaction during exposure. These results are useful for the lithographic process optimization of thick film resists.
Diffractive gratings, such as 1 grating and beam sampling grating (BSG), are used in the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) driver because of their high diffractive efficiency. Under high power laser condition, it demands that near fields of the diffractive gratings, mainly affected by input laser energy and beam modulation, must be less than their damage threshold, otherwise the diffractive gratings will be damaged. In this paper, Fourier modal method based on the rigorous electromagnetic theory is introduced to rapidly and accurately analyze the distribution of near fields of the diffractive gratings. Its physical concept is clear and concise, and computation cost is small. Through numerical simulation, it indicates that the results calculated by Fourier modal method are accurate and effective, compared with those calculated by other method. The near fields of 1 grating used in final optical system of ICF driver are obtained. In addition, fabrication errors effects on the near field modulation are simulated. It shows that the sidewall slope errors are the main cause of optical field modulation. With theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, it is useful to understand mechanism of damage and help how to control fabrication process errors of the optical elements used in the optical system of ICF.
KEYWORDS: Near field, Modulation, Near field diffraction, Diffraction gratings, Error analysis, High power lasers, Amplitude modulation, Optical damage, Diffractive optical elements, Laser systems engineering
Color Separating Grating (CSG) is one of the important Diffractive Optical Elements (DOE) used in the final optical system of high power laser system. Its periodic step-phase structure can separate the third harmonic frequency from base- and second-harmonic waves in the far field. But the structure abbreviations of CSG, caused by the fabrication process, generate great modulations to the laser beam, which may lead to severe optical damages to CSG itself and the system. In this paper, a comprehensive error model is built, in which each structural parameter of CSG is expressed as a variable, and the structural parameter error induced by fabrication process is expressed as minute disturb of relative variable. With this error model, the near field diffraction pattern of CSG is calculated based on Fresnel diffractive theory. Through simulation and analysis, we obtain the amplitude modulation of different harmonic waves in near field, and also the relationship between the amplitude modulation and the fabrication error. The results show that beam modulations are mainly caused by the stair depth error and the slope error. This study provides a convenient way to estimate the possibility of optical damages induced by CSG.
Grating lenses are diffractive optical elements with gradually variant space and line, and are widely applied to various optical systems, such as harmonic wave separation and diagnosis of high power laser system, optical communication and spectral analysis. Because of its small feature size (just about several times of the illumination wavelength) and gradually variant space and line, the simulation results are not accurate when using the scalar diffractive theory. In this paper, the grating lenses are subdivided into smaller areas, and every sub-area is regarded as periodic microstructure because variance of adjacent period is very small. Then Fourier modal method is adopted to analyze their diffractive properties in sequence, and finally total diffractive efficiency of grating lenses can be easily obtained. Its physical concept is clear and concise, and computation cost is small. Through numerical simulation, diffractive efficiency of grating lens for beam sampling and harmonic separation in high power laser system is calculated. It indicates that the method presented in this paper is accurate and valid. In addition, fabrication errors effects on diffractive efficiency are also simulated in order to obtain the relationship between process errors and diffractive efficiency of grating lenses. It suggests that grating lenses not only can be easily realized in fabrication process, but also can meet practical demand in high power laser system. In experiment, a beam-sampling grating with diameter 100 mm was fabricated, and its experimental diffractive efficiency is consistent with result calculated by the method in this paper.
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