System, apparatus and method for maskless lithography that emulates binary, attenuating phase-shift and alternating phase-shift masks
First Claim
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1. A system, comprising:
- an illumination system that supplies a beam of radiation having a wavelength;
an array of individually controllable elements that patterns the beam, each individually controllable element comprising a tilting portion and a non-tilting portion displaced from the tilting portion by a predetermined distance equal to a fraction of the wavelength; and
a projection system that projects the patterned beam onto a target portion of an object,wherein the displacement causes radiation reflected by the tilting portion and the non-tilting portion to be out of phase in accordance with the fraction of the wavelength.
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Abstract
A tilting mirror design for maskless lithography is proposed. In this mirror, the tilting portion occupies about 60% of the entire element area. The surrounding space is made 100% reflective and out-of-phase with respect to the tilting portion. The ratio between the tilting portion of the mirror and the out-of-phase portion is optimized in order to result in equal positive and negative maximum amplitudes over a complete range of tilt angles.
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Citations
25 Claims
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1. A system, comprising:
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an illumination system that supplies a beam of radiation having a wavelength; an array of individually controllable elements that patterns the beam, each individually controllable element comprising a tilting portion and a non-tilting portion displaced from the tilting portion by a predetermined distance equal to a fraction of the wavelength; and a projection system that projects the patterned beam onto a target portion of an object, wherein the displacement causes radiation reflected by the tilting portion and the non-tilting portion to be out of phase in accordance with the fraction of the wavelength. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A patterning device for patterning incident radiation, comprising:
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an array of first reflective portions, each of the first reflective portions having a first area; an array of second reflective portions, each of the second reflective portions having a second area, wherein each of the second reflective portions can tilt through a predetermined range of tilt angles about an axis shared by the first reflective portions and the second reflective portions, respectively, and wherein each first reflective portion is displaced from a corresponding second reflective portion by a predetermined distance equal to a fraction of a wavelength λ
of the incident radiation causing radiation reflected thereby to be out of phase in accordance with the fraction of the wavelength λ
; andan array of controllers coupled to one of respective ones of the second reflective portions and subsets of the second reflective portions, each of the controllers controlling the tilt angle of one of the respective ones of the second reflective portions and subsets of the second reflective portions. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A method, comprising:
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patterning a beam of radiation using an array of individually controllable elements, each of the individual elements in the array having a first reflective region that tilts and a second reflective region; and projecting the patterned beam onto a target portion of an object, wherein each element produces substantially equal positive and negative maximum amplitudes of reflected radiation over a complete range of tilt angles. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23)
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24. A system, comprising:
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an illumination system that supplies a beam of radiation; an array of individually controllable elements that patterns the beam, wherein each of the elements in the array of individually controllable elements comprises a tilting portion and a non-tilting portion, each of the non-tilting portions having a first reflective surface that is bounded by an inner periphery and outer periphery, each of the tilting portions having a second reflective surface that is bounded by a periphery, and each of the respective tilting portions being oriented with respect to the respective non-tilting portions so that the periphery of the respective tilting portions extends beyond the inner periphery of the respective non-tilting portions, but not beyond the outer periphery of the respective non-tilting portions; and a projection system that projects the patterned beam onto a target portion of an object; wherein the first reflective surfaces of the respective non-tilting portions are sized to a predetermined percentage of an area of the respective elements so as to produce substantially equal positive and negative maximum amplitudes at the target portion over a complete range of tilt angles.
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25. A patterning device, comprising:
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an array of first reflective portions, each of the first reflective portions having a first area; an array of second reflective portions, each of the second reflective portions having a second area, wherein each of the second reflective portions can tilt through a predetermined range of tilt angles about an axis shared by the first reflective portions and the second reflective portions, respectively, and wherein the first reflective portions and the second reflective portions are non-coplanar for all tilt angles; and an array of controllers coupled to one of respective ones of the second reflective portions and subsets of the second reflective portions, each of the controllers controlling the tilt angle of one of the respective ones of the second reflective portions and subsets of the second reflective portions; wherein a ratio of the area of the respective second reflective portions to the area of the respective first reflective portions produces substantially equal positive and negative maximum amplitudes of reflected radiation over a complete range of tilt angles.
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Specification