Carl-zeiss-smt Ag

Carl Zeiss Smt Gmbh

Carl-zeiss-stiftung

Alexander Sohmer

Alexander Epple

Johannes Wangler

Karl-Heinz Schuster

Christa Müller, Legal Representative

Wilhelm Ulrich

Aurelian Dodoc

Heiko Feldmann

Gerhard Fuerter

J&ouml;rg Schultz

Rafael Egger

Jess K&ouml;hler

Artur Moegele

Michael Raum

Janosch Müller, Legal Representative

Christa M&uuml;ller

An illumination system of a microlithographic exposure apparatus comprises a condenser for transforming a pupil plane into a field plane. The condenser has a lens group that contains a plurality of consecutive lenses. These lenses are arranged such that a light bundle focused by the condenser on an on-axis field point converges within each lens of the lens group. At least one lens of the lens group has a concave surface. The illumination system may further comprise a field stop objective that at least partly corrects a residual pupil aberration of the condenser.

Illumination system for a microlithgraphic exposure apparatus

A reticle-masking (REMA) objective for imaging an object plane onto an image plane has a condenser portion, an intermediate portion, and a field lens portion. The three portions together have no more than 10 lenses with a combined total of no more than five aspheric lens surfaces. Each of the three portions of the REMA objective has one or two aspheric lens surfaces.

Reticle-masking objective with aspherical lenses

An illumination system having a rod integrator and an objective for imaging an object field onto an image field, which has an entry surface, an exit surface, and reflecting side surfaces. A lens-free interspace with an axial size of at least 30 mm is in the objective. A plane within this interspace is optically conjugate to the plane of the entry surface. All rays starting from a central field within the entry surface that are not reflected at the side surfaces have smaller ray heights in the lens-free interspace in relation to the optical axis than all the rays starting from the central field that are reflected at the side surfaces; the ratio of the field width to the width of the entry surface is at most 0.7. The ratio of the field height to the height of the entry surface is at most 0.7.

Illumination system with reduced energy loading

Partial objective for illumination of an image field in an illuminating device of a microlithographic projection exposure apparatus, arranged between a aperture plane and an image plane. The partial objective comprises a first lens group and a second lens group with a lens with a first aspheric lens surface. The second lens group has at least a first lens with negative refractive power and at least a second lens with positive refractive power. The maximum field height Y within the image field is at least 40 mm; the image-side numerical aperture is at least 0.15. The distribution of the chief ray angles PF over the field heights Y within the image field is given by a pupil function PF(Y ), which consists of a linear contribution c &middot;Y and a non-linear contribution PF (Y ), the non-linear contribution PF (Y ) being at least &plus;15 mrad for the maximum positive field height Y .

Partial objective in an illuminating systems

Growing community of inventors

Oberkochen, Germany

Alexander Sohmer