THE IMPACT OF POLARIZED ILLUMINATION ON IMAGING CHARACTERISTICS IN OPTICAL MICROLITHOGRAPHY

This paper reports on a theoretical study of the microlithographic imaging performance of polarized masks, i.e. masks were specific polarization states can be assigned to the field traveling through mask apertures. It was found that the image contrast for mask features very close to or even below the standard resolution limit can be improved. For bigger features, however, process latitude will be reduced. The total process latitude can be increased, however, for a very limited range of feature sizes only.