COMPARISON BETWEEN THE EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL MODELING OF LINEWIDTH MEASUREMENTS ON PHOTOMASKS AND THEIR INSENSITIVITY TO ACCELERATING VOLTAGE IN THE SCANNING ELECTRON-MICROSCOPE

A technique for measuring linewidths on chromium‐on‐glass photomasks in the SEM is described. The experimental observation that the width at the 50% intensity levels of the backscattered electron image intensity profile is largely insensitive to the accelerating voltage is backed up through Monte Carlo trajectory calculations. The theoretical model yields results which can be used to predict the position of the true edge from experimental intensity profiles to within 0.01 μm. Copyright © 1990 Foundation for Advances in Medicine and Science, Inc.