The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 31, 2023
Filed:
Aug. 05, 2020
Asml Netherlands B.v., Veldhoven, NL;
Asml Holding N.v., Veldhoven, NL;
Franciscus Godefridus Casper Bijnen, Valkenswaard, NL;
Muhsin Eralp, Bethel, CT (US);
Simon Reinald Huisman, Eindhoven, NL;
Arie Jeffrey Den Boef, Waalre, NL;
ASML Netherlands B.V., Veldhoven, NL;
ASML Holding N.V., Veldhoven, NL;
Abstract
An alignment apparatus includes an illumination system configured to direct one or more illumination beams towards an alignment target and receive the diffracted beams from the alignment target. The alignment apparatus also includes a self-referencing Interferometer configured to generate two diffraction sub-beams, wherein the two diffraction sub-beams are orthogonally polarized, rotated 180 degrees with respect to each other around an alignment axis, and spatially overlapped. The alignment apparatus further includes a beam analyzer configured to generate interference between the overlapped components of the diffraction sub-beams and produce two orthogonally polarized optical branches, and a detection system configured to determine a position of the alignment target based on light intensity measurement of the optical branches, wherein the measured light intensity is temporally modulated by a phase modulator.