International Business Machines Corporation

Jeffery Gregory McCord

Bernell E Argyle

An apparatus, system, and method for illuminating a lithographic mask or an object in a microscope is presented, whereby the output of a laser beam homogenizer is imaged on to a field such as the object plane for lithographic application or on to the rear focal plane of an epi illuminating objective lens as a source for wide field illumination at an object plane in a microscope (for application to magnified imaging of weak phase objects)., and the image of the output is dithered with respect to the field

Laser beam homogenizer

An optical apparatus and methods for efficiently determining the magnetization of a material at very high optical resolution are disclosed. Individual components of the magnetization may be determined. Components in the plane of the sample surface are imaged by illuminating the material obliquely with substantially parallel light of relatively high power and very well controlled uniformity and polarization, and using light scattered obliquely in a parallel beam in the opposite direction at the same angle as the angle of incidence to record an image. Reversing the illumination and observation directions allows subtraction of the two images and measurement of the magnetization in-plane. A second in-plane component orthogonal to the first, is obtained similarly after reorienting the plane of incidence 90 degrees. The third magnetization component,&mdash;perpendicular to the sample surface&mdash;, may be obtained using illumination at both angles of incidence and subtracting two images, each recorded when a light-polarization angle of offset from extinction, is reversed. All three components may thereby be imaged without recourse to modulating the sample magnetization as in previous methods. Magnetically 'hard' as well as 'soft' materials are measurable by these methods.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Jeffery Gregory McCord