Simulation study on EUV multilayer polarization effects

Bilalaj L, Mesilhy HMS, Erdmann A (2021)


Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2021

Journal

Publisher: SPIE

Book Volume: 11875

Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

Event location: Virtual, Online, ESP

ISBN: 9781510645943

DOI: 10.1117/12.2599904

Abstract

The impact of polarization was observed in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) imaging simulations for high NA lithography [3] [4] [5]. It is shown that polarized illumination can improve the local contrast of images or NILS (normalized intensity log slope). This work investigates the possibilities to polarize EUV light by optimized multilayers. The characterization and simulation of multilayer structures has been performed using Dr.LiTHO [10]. The most efficient multilayer polarizers operate close to Brewster angle, where the reflectivity for TM polarized light (RTM) is close to zero, according to Fresnel's equations. A multiobjective optimization algorithm was used to identify the suitable multilayer configurations maximizing reflectivity of TE polarized light (RTE) and fraction of polarization. Fraction of polarization (FoP) was calculated as the ratio between (RTE-RTM)/(RTE+RTM) to obtain the suitable multilayer with variable thickness. The multilayer structure is optimized to have the highest reflectivity of TE polarized light and fraction of polarization at the Brewster angle. It was found that MoSi multilayer can achieve 99.9% fraction of polarization by optimizing the thickness of Si and Mo. In reality, a multilayer polarizer has to operate over certain ranges of incident angles and/or wavelength ranges. Multilayer is optimized for different ranges of wavelength (13 nm: 14 nm) and incidence angles (37°: 47°). Additional simulations investigate the impact of different options in the design of the multilayer (e.g., constant vs. variable bilayer thickness) and materials (e.g., RuSi vs. MoSi multilayers) on the achievable performance.

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How to cite

APA:

Bilalaj, L., Mesilhy, H.M.S., & Erdmann, A. (2021). Simulation study on EUV multilayer polarization effects. In Daniel G. Smith, Frank Wyrowski, Andreas Erdmann (Eds.), Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering. Virtual, Online, ESP: SPIE.

MLA:

Bilalaj, L., Hazem Mohamed Safwat Mesilhy, and Andreas Erdmann. "Simulation study on EUV multilayer polarization effects." Proceedings of the Computational Optics 2021, Virtual, Online, ESP Ed. Daniel G. Smith, Frank Wyrowski, Andreas Erdmann, SPIE, 2021.

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