Large-field electron optics: limitations and enhancements

Hans C. Pfeiffer; Werner Stickel

doi:10.1117/12.221586

25 September 1995 Large-field electron optics: limitations and enhancements

Hans C. Pfeiffer, Werner Stickel

Proceedings Volume 2522, Electron-Beam Sources and Charged-Particle Optics; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.221586
Event: SPIE's 1995 International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1995, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

The renewed interest in charged particle projection lithography has highlighted the need for particle optics to cover larger fields. Previous attempts to develop e-beam and ion beam projection systems for lithography have shown that particle optics can image 10⁸ - 10⁹ pixels in parallel at modest beam currents (< 10 uA). Competitive lithography tools for the high volume production of gigabit chips, however, will have to project more than 10¹¹ pixels at beam currents up to 50 uA. This requirements can only be met through a significant advancement in the state-of-the-art. The field size of electron optics is limited by off-axis aberrations, prohibiting the simultaneous projection of such large numbers of pixels. Therefore, to date the most successful electron beam lithography approach has been that of the probe-forming scanning electron beam system. The sequential exposure of pixels allows (partial) dynamic correction of aberrations and image control `on the fly', but it also severely limits the throughput. Combining, however, the dynamic correction capability of probe- forming systems with the parallel projection of the pixels contained in fractions of a mask appears to be a promising approach to high throughput lithography. It has high potential of meeting the challenges of large field electron optics. This paper describes, how the field size of electron optics can be enlarged despite the limitations posed by off-axis aberrations and Coulomb interactions between beam electrons.

Citation Download Citation

Hans C. Pfeiffer and Werner Stickel "Large-field electron optics: limitations and enhancements", Proc. SPIE 2522, Electron-Beam Sources and Charged-Particle Optics, (25 September 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.221586

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