Nikon Corporation

Nippon Kogaku K.k.

Olympus Corporation

Tetsuo Kikuchi

Hiroshi Shirasu

Koichi Matsumoto

Masamitsu Yanagihara

Noriaki Yamamoto

Takashi Mori

Masaki Kato

Hideki Komatsuda

Tomohide Hamada

Makoto Uehara

Masahiro Nakagawa

Tsuyoshi Naraki

Hideo Hirose

Osamu Inoue

Haruo Ozawa

Kiyotada Nakamura

Yuji Kudoh

An exposure apparatus exposes a transfer pattern of a mask onto a photosensitive substrate in an overlapping manner. The exposure apparatus includes an illumination optical system for guiding illumination light to the mask. An imaging optical system in the illumination optical system forms an illumination area on the mask. The exposure apparatus includes a lens driving apparatus. The lens driving apparatus moves at least one of the lenses constituting the imaging optical system along the optical axis and so forth, thereby correcting an optical characteristic of the imaging optical system.

Exposure apparatus, method for manufacturing thereof and method for manufacturing microdevice

A semiconductor exposure device having excellent throughput using a mercury lamp as an exposure light source. The mercury lamp is capable of providing an efficient i-ray output, with a small i-ray half width value, allowing correction of chromatic aberration. The semiconductor exposure device is further provided with an illumination optical system for illuminating a target surface and a projection optical system for projecting the image on the target surface. The illumination optical system is provided with the mercury lamp, an optical integrator, an optical system for guiding a flux of light emitted from the mercury lamp to the optical integrator and a condenser lens for converging the light from the optical integrator. The semiconductor exposure device is provided with a power source and an associated control circuit for supplying an electric current to the mercury lamp. The power source is configured to allow the mercury lamp to have an average electric field E satisfying the following relational expression with respect to the lamp input power W.sub.L (W), provided that the value obtained by deducting 11 V from the lamp voltage V.sub.L (V) of the mercury lamp and dividing the difference by the electrode-to-electrode distance d (mm) is the average electric field E (=V.sub.L -11/d) (V/mm):

Semiconductor exposure device

An illumination optical apparatus for setting the illuminance on an illuminated object as high as possible at or below the upper limit of illuminance. When the illumination state changing unit changes the illumination state of illumination light, for example, when the numerical aperture is decreased to lower the illuminance on the illuminated object, the power supplied to the light source is increased; inversely, when the numerical aperture is increased to enhance the illuminance on the illuminated object, the power supplied to the light source is decreased so that the illuminance is kept at or below the predetermined upper limit. This can maintain the illuminance on the illuminated object high and nearly constant even with a change of the illumination state.

Illumination optical apparatus and method and exposure apparatus using

An illumination optical apparatus of this invention is small in size as a whole and capable of illuminating a plurality of illumination areas on a mask. The illumination optical apparatus illuminates a plurality of areas on a mask to be projected/exposed. This apparatus includes at least two light sources, a focusing optical system for focusing light beams from the respective light sources to form light source images, a light guide having incident ends equal in number to the light sources and exit ends equal in number to the illumination areas and serving to guide light beams from the respective light source images incident on the incident ends to the exit ends, and an illumination optical system for irradiating the light beams from the respective light source images emerging from the exit ends of the light guide onto the corresponding areas on the mask. The light guide is constituted by a plurality of optical fibers bundled together and divides light beams to make the amounts of light beams at the respective exit ends almost equal to each other.

Illumination optical apparatus and scanning exposure apparatus using the

An exposure apparatus and an exposure method for fabricating semiconductor devices or liquid crystal display boards. The scanning means synchronously moves the mask and the photosensitive substrate with respect to the plurality of projection optical systems, and patterns formed on the mask are projected onto the photosensitive substrate while images of mask formed by adjacent illumination optical systems are made overlapping with each other. On this occasion, the controlling means controls the light intensity changing means, and the light intensity changing means changes the intensity of a light beam of each illumination optical system, so that two intensities of overlapping parts in adjacent illumination areas become substantially equal to each other. The control by the controlling means is carried out based on the light intensities of the overlapping illumination areas as detected by the light intensity detecting means.

Exposure apparatus and exposure method

The illumination device of the present invention is directed to an illumination device comprising a light source system for generating illumination light, a collimate optical system for collimating the illumination light from the light source system into a substantially collimated light beam, an optical integrator for forming a plurality of light source images on the basis of the light beam from the collimate optical system, a variable aperture stop arranged at an exit surface of the optical integrator, and a condenser lens system for guiding the light beam from the optical integrator to a surface of an object to be illuminated, and making an incident surface of the optical integrator conjugate with the surface of the object to be illuminated.

Illumination device with allowable error amount of telecentricity on the

An exposure apparatus comprises a plurality of illumination optical systems for generating a plurality of light beams, a plurality of projection optical systems disposed corresponding to the plurality of illumination optical systems, respectively, a plurality of light intensity detectors, provided respectively for the plurality of illumination optical systems, for detecting individual intensities of the plurality of light beams, a light intensity changing device for changing the respective intensities of the plurality of light beams, and a control device for controlling the light intensity changing device and uniformizing the intensities of the plurality of light beams to a substantially fixed level.

Multi-beam scanning projection exposure apparatus and method with beam

An illumination optical apparatus includes secondary light source forming means for forming a plurality of light source images from collimated light beams emitted from a light source, tertiary light source forming means arranged midway along an optical path from the secondary light source forming means, and a condenser lens arranged midway along an optical path from the tertiary light source forming means. The secondary light source forming means includes an optical integrator having entrance and exit surface. A plurality lens surface having a larger focal length than a distance between the entrance and exit surfaces are formed on the entrance sarfaces. Thus, a plurality of secondary light source images are formed by the secondary light source forming means in a space behind the exit surface of the optical integrator.

Illumination optical apparatus

An illumination optical system comprises a multi-beam generator which includes a plurality of each of two kinds of lens elements different in optical characteristics and which is interposed between a source for generating a collimated light beam and a light condenser. The multi-beam generator generates a large number of secondary light sources from the collimated light beam. The illumination optical system is capable of supplying illuminating light rays having an extremely uniform illumination distribution.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Tetsuo Kikuchi