Nikon Corporation

Shigeru Hagiwara

Takashi Mori

Masato Hamatani

Kazuya Ota

Hideo Mizutani

Hiroyuki Hiraiwa

Noriaki Tokuda

Jun Nagatsuka

Shinichi Hasegawa

Jin Yamada

In the exposure apparatus of the present invention, a sealed chamber defined by a first lens and a second lens in an input lens system on a plane of incidence of a fly-eye lens in an illumination optical system is provided. In a gas exchanging step, the impurity gas in the sealed chamber is first exhausted through an electromagnetic valve provided with a check valve and a gas exhaust pipe, using a gas exhaust pump and then, a high-purity nitrogen gas is supplied from a gas bomb through a gas supply pipe and an electromagnetic valve provided with a check valve to the sealed chamber. Using a pressure sensor provided in the sealed chamber, the gas exchanging step is repeated while maintaining an amount of change in pressure in the sealed chamber within a predetermined allowable range, to thereby reduce the concentration of impurities in the gas in the sealed chamber to a target value.

Exposure apparatus

In the present invention, a light source portion including a laser resonator of a laser unit is housed in an environment control chamber where the main body of the exposure apparatus including a projection optical system is also housed, and temperature control of the main body of the exposure apparatus and the light source portion is performed so as to maintain the temperature of the entire optical system within the chamber uniform. Thus, the footprint of the apparatus can be reduced compared with when the whole laser unit is arranged separately from the main body of the exposure apparatus. Shift of the center wavelength and change in the spectral half-width and the degree of energy concentration can be avoided, and variation of image forming characteristics including the chromatic aberration of the projection optical system due to the wavelength shift can be suppressed to a minimum. Accordingly, with the exposure apparatus in the present invention, the productivity when producing a microdevice can be improved, and the production cost reduced.

Exposure apparatus and its making method, and device manufacturing method

In a scanning exposure apparatus and method, a pattern formed on a mask is transferred onto a substrate by scanning the mask and the substrate synchronously with respect to pulsed light emitted from a pulsed laser light source. A number of pulses of a light beam that are to be emitted to each point on the substrate during scanning exposure is determined, and the light source is controlled according to the determined number of pulses, so that the maximum scanning speeds of the mask and the substrate and/or the maximum oscillation period of the pulsed light are maintained during the scanning exposure process. In another arrangement, during the process of exposing a shot area on the substrate, integral values of the amount of exposure energy are detected at a plurality of points in that shot area. Based on this detection result, the oscillation frequency of the pulsed light that is to be emitted to the next shot area is determined so that the next shot area is exposed at an appropriate exposure level. In another arrangement, the light source and/or the exposure light emitted from the light source are adjusted so that the output level of the light source is set to the minimum required level, and so that the target value of the integral exposure dose is reliably achieved without reducing the scanning speeds of the mask and the substrate from their maximum. In still another arrangement, during the process for exposing the substrate to the laser beam, while scanning the substrate to transfer the mask pattern, the illuminance of the light source is controlled at a constant value. In yet another arrangement, when the exposure apparatus is not performing exposure (i.e., during the non-exposure period of the operation), the illuminance of the light source is maintained at a constant level, but the exposure light is blocked by a blind so as not to reach the mask or the mask stage.

SCANNING EXPOSURE IN WHICH AN OBJECT AND PULSED LIGHT ARE MOVED RELATIVELY, EXPOSING A SUBSTRATE BY PROJECTING A PATTERN ON A MASK ONTO THE SUBSTRATE WITH PULSED LIGHT FROM A LIGHT SOURCE, LIGHT SOURCES THEREFOR, AND METHODS OF MANUFACTURING

An exposure apparatus for illuminating a mask pattern and transferring the image of the pattern onto a photosensitive substrate comprises a chamber which houses an exposure unit, an air-conditioner for adjusting the atmosphere in the chamber to a constant condition, a drain for draining condensate produced in the air-conditioner, trapping system for temporarily trapping the condensate before draining it, and a liquid supply system for supplying clean liquid to the trapping system. A U-tube or a solenoid valve is provided at a midway position of a drain pipe for the trapping system to prevent the entry of impurities from the outside into the apparatus. Otherwise, impurities may be prevented from entering by interposing a waterproof filter between the air-conditioner and drain to remove impurities in the condensate produced in the air-conditioner.

An exposure apparatus illuminates a mask pattern and transfers the image of the pattern onto a photosensitive substrate. The exposure apparatus includes a chamber which houses an exposure unit, an air-conditioner for adjusting the atmosphere in the chamber to a constant condition, a drain for draining condensate produced in the air-conditioner, a trapping system for temporarily trapping the condensate before draining it, and a liquid supply system for supplying clean liquid to the trapping system. A U-tube or a solenoid valve is provided at a midway position of a drain pipe for the trapping system to prevent the entry of impurities from the outside into the apparatus. Otherwise, impurities may be prevented from entering by interposing a waterproof filter between the air-conditioner and drain to remove impurities in the condensate produced in the air-conditioner.

An alignment apparatus according to the present invention is constructed, for example, which is arranged in an exposure apparatus provided with a projection optical system which projects a predetermined pattern formed on a mask onto a substrate under exposure light, which performs relative positioning between the mask and the substrate, which has light irradiating means for irradiating alignment light in a wavelength region different from that of exposure light onto an alignment mark formed on the substrate through the projection optical system and detecting means for detecting light from the alignment mark through the projection optical system, wherein, for alignment light as irradiation light traveling toward the alignment mark and alignment light as detection light from the alignment mark, there are provided correction optical elements for irradiation light and correction optical elements for detection light to cause axial chromatic aberration and magnification chromatic aberration in the opposite directions to axial chromatic aberration and magnification chromatic aberration of the projection optical system between the mask and the substrate, wherein the alignment light is multi-colored light with a plurality of beams different in wavelength from each other in the wavelength region different from that of exposure light, and wherein the correction optical elements for irradiation light or the correction optical elements for detection light each are provided in correspondence with the plurality of beams different in wavelength.

Alignment apparatus in projection exposure apparatus

An illuminating apparatus which comprises a light source, an optical system for condensing light emitted from the light source and illuminating an object with the condensed light, and an optical member which absorbs light having a wavelength from 260 to 340 nm among the light emitted from the light source, wherein the optical member is made of glass or crystalline material to which metal is doped.

Illuminating apparatus

An optical illumination device reflects and condenses light from a mercury-arc lamp by a light reflecting and condensing member and then reflects and deflects the light, thereafter the reflected and deflected light is transferred to a relay-lens system through a collimator lens or input lens, band-pass filter and fly-eye lens. Gas from which impurities are removed by a filter is flown around optical elements to separate the optical elements from air containing material causing clouding of the optical elements to thereby restrain clouding of the optical elements. On the other hand, or in addition, the reflectance of the light reflecting and condensing member and/or miller for the light of the absorption band of sulfur dioxide is made small to prevent the optical elements from clouding.

Optical illumination device

A chemical filter for removing a chemical impurity is arranged at an air inlet, and a gas sensor for adsorbing the chemical impurity is arranged upstream of the chemical filter. The service life of the chemical filter is determined on the basis of the resonance frequency of the gas sensor. Alternatively, the chemical filter has a specific portion whose removal capacity for the chemical impurity is lower than that of the rest, and a sensor for sensing the chemical impurity is arranged downstream of the specific portion. The service life of the chemical filter is predicted on the basis of an output from the sensor.

Air cleaning apparatus used for an exposure apparatus

An exposing apparatus which has an alignment apparatus for detecting the relative positional relation between a mask having a pattern for transfer formed thereon and a photosensitive substrate having an alignment mark thereon by applying alignment light to the alignment mark and which exposes the photosensitive substrate to exposure light transmitted through the pattern for transfer, through a projection optical system includes an alignment optical system for causing the alignment light to pass at least once through the projection optical system, the alignment light being of a wavelength in the vicinity of three times the wavelength of the exposure light.

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Kawasaki, Japan

Shigeru Hagiwara