Carl Zeiss Smt Gmbh

Carl-zeiss-smt Ag

Hans-Juergen Rostalski

Aurelian Dodoc

Wilhelm Ulrich

Alexander Epple

Heiko Feldmann

Karl-Heinz Schuster

Susanne Beder

Russell M Hudyma

Wolfgang Singer

Rolf Freimann

Helmut Beierl

Christoph Menke

Alexander Wolf

Karl Heinz Schuster

Joerg Mallmann

Hans-Juergen Mann

Johannes Wangler

Hubert Holderer

Michael Totzeck

Bernhard Gellrich

Johannes Ruoff

Ulrich Loering

Markus Schwab

Thomas Schicketanz

Marco Pretorius

Ralf Mueller

Holger Muenz

Andreas Wurmbrand

Paul Graeupner

Juergen Fischer

Alexandra Pazidis

Franz-Josef Stickel

Johannes Zellner

Joachim Wietzorrek

Sascha Migura

Joerg Schultz

Tilman Schwertner

Reiner Garreis

Patrick Scheible

Albrecht Ranck

Johannes Bol

Claus Zahlten

A projection optical unit for microlithography includes a plurality of mirrors and has a numerical aperture having a value larger than 0.5. The plurality of mirrors includes at least three grazing incidence mirrors, which deflect a chief ray of a central object field point with an angle of incidence of greater than 45&#xb0;. Different polarized light beams passing the projection optical unit are rotated in their polarization direction by different angles of rotation. The projection optical unit includes first and second groups of mirrors. The second group of mirrors includes the final two mirrors of the plurality of mirrors at the image side. A linear portion in the pupil dependence of the total geometrical polarization rotation of the projection optical unit is less than 20% of a linear portion in the pupil dependence of the geometrical polarization rotation of the second group of mirrors.

Projection optical unit for microlithography and method for producing a structured component

An imaging optical unit includes a plurality of mirrors to guide imaging light along an imaging beam path. The plurality of mirrors includes a number of mirrors for grazing incidence (GI mirrors), which deflect a chief ray of a central object field point with an angle of incidence of more than 45&#xb0;. At least two of the GI mirrors are in the imaging beam path as basic GI mirrors so that the deflection effect thereof adds up for the chief ray. At least one further GI mirror is arranged in the imaging beam path as a counter GI mirror so that the deflection effect thereof acts in subtractive fashion for the chief ray in relation to the deflection effect of the basic GI mirrors. This can yield an imaging optical unit having enhanced flexibility in relation to an installation space used for mirror bodies of the mirrors of the imaging optical unit.

Imaging optical unit for imaging an object field into an image field

An imaging optical unit for projection lithography has a plurality of mirrors for imaging an object field into an image field with imaging light guided along a path from the object field to the image field. The penultimate mirror in the path has no passage opening to pass the imaging light. The imaging optical unit has a stop to predefine an outer marginal contour of a pupil of the imaging optical unit. The stop is between the penultimate and last mirrors in the path. The imaging optical unit can have exactly one stop for predefining at least one section of the outer pupil marginal contour. An entrance pupil of the imaging optical unit can be upstream of the object field. The imaging optical unit can be well defined regarding its pupil and exhibit desirable properties for projection lithography.

Imaging optical unit and projection exposure apparatus including same

An imaging optical unit for projection lithography has a plurality of mirrors for guiding imaging light from an object field into an image field. The object field is spanned by a first, larger object field dimension and along a second, smaller object field dimension. The imaging optical unit has at least two GI mirrors and at least one NI mirror. The NI mirror is arranged between two GI mirrors in the imaging light beam path. A used reflection surface of the NI mirror has an aspect ratio between a surface dimension along a first reflection surface coordinate and a surface dimension along a second reflection coordinate parallel to the second object field dimension. The aspect ratio being less than 4.5. An imaging optical unit with reduced production costs emerges.

Imaging optical unit for imaging an object field into an image field, and projection exposure apparatus including such an imaging optical unit

An imaging optical unit for projection lithography has a plurality of mirrors for guiding imaging light from an object field in an object plane into an image field in an image plane along an imaging light beam path. At least two of the mirrors are embodied as GI mirrors. Exactly one stop serves to predefine at least one section of an outer marginal contour of a pupil of the imaging optical unit. The stop is arranged spatially in front of a penultimate mirror in the imaging light beam path. This results in an imaging optical unit that is well defined with regard to its pupil and is optimized for projection lithography.

An imaging optical unit for imaging an object field in an image field is disclosed. The imaging optical unit has an obscured pupil. This pupil has a center, through which a chief ray of a central field point passes. The imaging optical unit furthermore has a plurality of imaging optical components. A gravity center of a contiguous pupil obscuration region of the imaging optical unit lies decentrally in the pupil of the imaging optical unit.

Imaging optical unit and projection exposure apparatus for projection lithography, having such imaging optical unit

An objective having a plurality of optical elements arranged to image a pattern from an object field to an image field at an image-side numerical aperture NA&#x3e;0.8 with electromagnetic radiation from a wavelength band around a wavelength &#x3bb; includes a number N of dioptric optical elements, each dioptric optical element i made from a transparent material having a normalized optical dispersion&#x394;(&#x3bb;)&#x2212;(&#x3bb;+1 pm)for a wavelength variation of 1 pm from a wavelength &#x3bb;. The objective satisfies the relation for any ray of an axial ray bundle originating from a field point on an optical axis in the object field, where sis a geometrical path length of a ray in an ith dioptric optical element having axial thickness dand the sum extends on all dioptric optical elements of the objective. Where A=0.2 or below, spherochromatism is sufficiently corrected.

Chromatically corrected objective with specifically structured and arranged dioptric optical elements and projection exposure apparatus including the same

A measuring arrangement for measuring optical properties of a reflective optical element, in particular for microlithography, with an EUV light source (), a detector () configured to detect EUV radiation reflected at the reflective optical element (), and an imaging system (), which images object points on the reflective optical element onto respective image points on the detector, wherein the imaging system is configured to reflect the EUV radiation, a first optical component (), and at least one second optical component (). Both at the first optical component and at the second optical component, reflection angles with respect to respective surface normals that respectively occur during reflection of the EUV radiation are at least 70&#xb0;.

Measuring arrangement for measuring optical properties of a reflective optical element, in particular for microlithography

An imaging optical unit () serves for imaging an object field () in an object plane () into an image field () in an image plane (). The imaging optical unit () has a plurality of components (Mto M, GI) which guide imaging light (). The imaging optical unit () is embodied as a pupil-obscured system. The imaging optical unit () has at least one mirror (GI) for grazing incidence of the imaging light (). The result is an imaging optical unit having a handleable combination of low imaging aberrations and compact construction.

Imaging optical unit and projection exposure apparatus for projection lithography comprising such an imaging optical unit

The disclosure relates to an optical arrangement in a projection objective of a microlithographic projection exposure apparatus which is designed for operation in EUV. The optical arrangement includes first and second mirrors that are in direct succession to each other along the projection beam direction. The second mirror is rigidly connected to the first mirror.

Optical arrangement in a projection objective of a microlithographic projection exposure apparatus

Imaging optics includes a first mirror in the imaging beam path after the object field, a last mirror in the imaging beam path before the image field, and a fourth to last mirror in the imaging beam path before the image field. In an unfolded imaging beam path between the object plane and the image plane, an impingement point of the chief ray on a used region of each of the plurality of mirrors has a mirror spacing from the image plane. The mirror spacing of the first mirror is greater than the mirror spacing of the last mirror. The mirror spacing of the fourth to last mirror is greater than the mirror spacing of the first mirror. Chief rays that emanate from points of the object field that are spaced apart from another have a mutually diverging beam course, giving a negative back focus of the entrance pupil.

Imaging optics and projection exposure installation for microlithography with an imaging optics

In a projection objective for imaging a pattern arranged in the object plane of the projection objective into the image plane of the projection objective, at least one optical component is provided which has a substrate in which at least one substrate surface is covered with an interference layer system having a great spatial modulation of the reflectance and/or of the transmittance over a usable cross section of the optical component, the modulation being adapted to a spatial transmission distribution of the remaining components of the projection objective in such a way that an intensity distribution of the radiation that is measured in a pupil surface has a substantially reduced spatial modulation in comparison with a projection objective without the interference layer system.

Projection system with compensation of intensity variations and compensation element therefor

An imaging microoptics, which is compact and robust, includes at least one aspherical member and has a folded beam path. The imaging microoptics provides a magnification |&#x3b2;'| of &#x3e;800 by magnitude. Furthermore, a system for positioning a wafer with respect to a projection optics includes the imaging microoptics, an image sensor positionable in the image plane of the imaging microoptics, for measuring a position of an aerial image of the projection optics, and a wafer stage with an actuator and a controller for positioning the wafer in dependence of an output signal of the image sensor.

Imaging microoptics for measuring the position of an aerial image

Growing community of inventors

Oberkochen, Germany

Hans-Juergen Rostalski