Carl Zeiss Smt Gmbh

Carl Zeiss Microscopy Gmbh

Carl Zeiss Industrielle Messtechnik Gmbh

Carl Zeiss Ag

Christoph Husemann

Lars Stoppe

Dirk Seidel

Ulrich Matejka

Alexander Freytag

Carsten Schmidt

Johannes Ruoff

Markus Sticker

Matthias Manger

Hans-Jürgen Mann

Thomas Scheruebl

Kai Wicker

Sascha Perlitz

Matus Kalisky

Beat Marco Mout

Wolfgang Singer

Nils Haverkamp

Matthias Wald

Johannes Winterot

Enrico Geissler

Holger Seitz

Thomas Milde

Christian Wojek

Lars Omlor

Markus Koch

Thomas Thaler

Tanja Teuber

Ute Buttgereit

Thomas Trautzsch

Ivo Vellekoop

Lutz Schaefer

Jan Hendrik Peters

Jörg Frederik Blumrich

Senthil Kumar Lakshmanan

Tzu-Lun Wang

Bahareh Mastiani

Susanne Töpfer

Mame Kouna Top-Diallo

An apparatus and method for manipulating a focus of excitation light on or in a sample, particularly in a microscope. The apparatus has a light source for emitting excitation light, an excitation beam path for guiding the excitation light onto or into the sample, the excitation beam path comprising an objective for guiding the excitation light onto or into the sample and a wavefront modulator for modulating the excitation light, and a control device for driving the wavefront modulator. The control device is designed for driving the wavefront modulator to generate a number of shaped waves on or in the sample. A focus is generated at a specified location on or in the sample by superposition of the shaped waves.

Apparatus and method for manipulating a focus of excitation light on or in a sample and microscope

A method for determining the optimal position of the focal plane for examining a specimen by microscopy can include a) illuminating the specimen with light and recording images at different positions of the focal plane to provide a stack of intensity images, b) calculating a phase image from at least two intensity images, with the calculated phase image being assigned a focal plane position located within a focal plane region whose boundaries are the two most spaced apart positions of the focal plane of the at least two intensity images, c) repeating step b) multiple times with different intensity images such that a stack of phase images is available, d) calculating at least one focus measure value for each phase image, and e) determining the optimal position of the focal plane on the basis of the calculated focus measure values and the focal plane positions assigned to the phase images.

Method and device for determining the optimal position of the focal plane for examining a specimen by microscopy

The present invention relates to a method for evaluating a statistically distributed measured value in the examination of an element for a photolithography process, comprising the following steps: (a) using a plurality of parameters in a trained machine learning model, wherein the parameters characterize a state of a measurement environment in a time period assigned to a measurement of the measured value; and (b) executing the trained machine learning model in order to evaluate the measured value.

Method and device for evaluating a statistically distributed measured value in the examination of an element of a photolithography process

The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for determining at least one unknown effect of defects of an element of a photolithography process. The method comprises the steps of: (a) providing a model of machine learning for a relationship between an image, design data associated with the image and at least one effect of the defects of the element of the photolithography process arising from the image; (b) training the model of machine learning using a multiplicity of images used for training purposes, design data associated with the images used for training purposes and corresponding effects of the defects; and (c) determining the at least one unknown effect of the defects by applying the trained model to a measured image and the design data associated with the measured image.

Method and apparatus for evaluating an unknown effect of defects of an element of a photolithography process

An apparatus for analyzing an element of a photolithography process, said apparatus comprising: (a) a first measuring apparatus for recording first data of the element; and (b) means for transforming the first data into second, non-measured data, which correspond to measurement data of a measurement of the element with a second measuring apparatus; (c) wherein the means comprise a transformation model, which has been trained using a multiplicity of first data used for training purposes and second data corresponding therewith, which are linked to the second measuring apparatus.

Apparatus and method for analyzing an element of a photolithography process with the aid of a transformation model

When detecting an object structure, at least one portion of the object is initially illuminated with illumination light of an at least partly coherent light source from at least one preferred illumination direction. At least one diffraction image of the illuminated portion is recorded by spatially resolved detection of the diffraction intensity of the illumination light, diffracted by the illuminated portion, in a detection plane. At least one portion of the object structure is reconstructed from the at least one recorded diffraction image using an iterative method. Here, the iteration diffraction image of a raw object structure is calculated starting from an iteration start value and said raw object structure is compared to the recorded diffraction image in each iteration step. The iteration start value is taken by starting from a raw object structure of the object structure to be detected, which is obtained by an iteration start value ascertainment method that is independent of the remaining detection method. This yields a method in which a detection of an object structure is designed to be insensitive at a given accuracy.

Method for detecting an object structure and apparatus for carrying out the method

Various approaches in which an image-recording parameter is varied between a plurality of images of an object and a stereo image pair is displayed on the basis of the images recorded thus are described. Here, in particular, the image-recording parameter can be a focal plane or an illumination direction.

Method and devices for displaying stereoscopic images

In detecting the structure of a lithography mask, a portion of the lithography mask is firstly illuminated with illumination light of an at least partially coherent light source in the at least one preferred illumination direction. A diffraction image of the illuminated portion is then recorded by spatially resolved detection of a diffraction intensity of the illumination light diffracted from the illuminated portion in a detection plane. The steps of 'illuminating' and 'recording the diffraction image' are then carried out for further portions of the lithography mask. Between at least two portions of the lithography mask that are thereby detected, there is in each case an overlap region whose surface extent measures at least 5% or more of the smaller of the two portions of the lithography mask. The repetition takes place until the detected portions of the lithography mask completely cover a region of the lithography mask to be detected. The structure of the lithography mask is calculated from the recorded diffraction images of the illuminated portions. A device for carrying out the structure detection method is also specified, which comprises a light source, a spatially-resolving detector and a mask holder. This results in a method and a device for detecting the structure of a lithography mask, in which the demands placed on an optical unit arranged downstream in the beam path from the illumination light of the lithography mask are reduced.

Method for detecting a structure of a lithography mask and device for carrying out the method

A method and an apparatus for beam analysis in an optical system are disclosed, wherein a plurality of beam parameters of a beam propagating along an optical axis are ascertained. The method includes: splitting the beam into a plurality of partial beams which have a focus offset in the longitudinal direction in relation to the optical axis; recording a measurement image produced by these partial beams; carrying out a forward simulation of the beam in the optical system on the basis of estimated initial values for the beam parameters in order to obtain a simulated image; and calculating a set of values for the beam parameters on the basis of the comparison between the simulated image and the measurement image.

Method and device for beam analysis

The invention relates to a method and an appliance for predicting the imaging result obtained with a mask when a lithography process is carried out, wherein the mask comprises mask structures to be imaged and the mask is destined to be illuminated in a lithography process in a projection exposure apparatus with a predetermined illumination setting for exposing a wafer comprising a photoresist. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, a method according to the invention comprises the following steps: measuring at least one intensity distribution obtained for the mask in the case of an illumination with illumination light in accordance with the illumination setting in a mask inspection apparatus using a sensor arrangement, ascertaining an electric field resulting from the interaction of the illumination light with the mask structures, both in respect of amplitude and in respect of phase, by way of this intensity measurement, and estimating an intensity distribution obtained in the photoresist when the lithography process is carried out on the basis of a mathematical simulation (forward calculation), in which the electric field ascertained is propagated in a layer system comprising at least the photoresist.

Method and appliance for predicting the imaging result obtained with a mask when a lithography process is carried out

To determine a position of an object () parallel to the optical axis () of an optical device (), the object () is illumined from a first illumination direction (-) and from a second illumination direction (-) and an image (--) is acquired in each case. The position of the object () is determined based on a distance () between imaging locations of the object (--) in the images (--).

Determining the position of an object in the beam path of an optical device

In a method for three-dimensionally measuring a 3D aerial image in the region around an image plane during the imaging of a lithography mask, which is arranged in an object plane, a selectable imaging scale ratio in mutually perpendicular directions (x, y) is taken into account. For this purpose, an electromagnetic wavefront of imaging light is reconstructed after interaction thereof with the lithography mask. An influencing variable that corresponds to the imaging scale ratio is included. Finally, the 3D aerial image measured with the inclusion of the influencing variable is output. This results in a measuring method with which lithography masks that are optimized for being used with an anamorphic projection optical unit during projection exposure can also be measured.

Method for three-dimensionally measuring a 3D aerial image of a lithography mask

The invention relates to a reflection-reduced contrast imaging method and to a device for generating a reflection-reduced contrast image, preferably from microscopic images, in particular in order to read height progression information of a condition of an object. The reflection-reduced contrast imaging method comprises: illuminating an object by means of an illumination sequence, creating an illumination image of the object for each illumination of the object of the illumination sequence, determining a reflection-corrected illumination image for each illumination image, superposing each pair of reflection-corrected illumination images that are adjacent with respect to the first axis in order to form a first whole axis image of the first axis, superposing each pair of reflection-corrected illumination images that are adjacent with respect to the second axis in order to form a second whole axis image of the second axis, creating a first color progression image on the basis of the first whole axis image, creating a second color progression image on the basis of the second whole axis image, transforming the first color progression image and the second color progression image into a color space, generating a contrast image on the basis of the first color progression image and the second color progression image transformed in the color space.

Method for generating a reflection-reduced contrast image and corresponding device

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Jena, Germany

Christoph Husemann