Photolithography is a key technolgoy for the production of semiconductor devices. It supports the continuing trend towards higher integration density of microelectronic devices.
The material used in the optics of lithography tools has to be of extremely high quality to ensure the high demand of the imaging. Due to its properties CaF2 is a material of choice for the application in lithography systems.
Because of the compexity of the lithography tools single lenses or lens system modules cannot be replaced. Therefore the lens material has to last the full lifetime of the tool without major degradation.
According to the roadmap for next generation of optical lithography tools, like immersion lithography, the requirements of CaF2 for radiation hardness are increasing considerably.
We will present a detailed analysis of the key factors influencing the laser hardness covering the complete production chain.
Some aspects of the evaluation methods for testing CaF2 laser durability will be presented.
Homogeneity residuals of the refractive index have a strong influence on the performance of lithography tools for both 193 and 157 nm application wavelengths. By systematic investigations of various defects in the real structure of CaF2 crystals, the origin of homogeneity residuals can be shown. Based on a quantitative analysis we define limiting values for the individual defects which can be either tolerated or controlled by optimized process steps, e.g. annealing. These correlations were carried out for all three relevant main crystal lattice orientations of CaF2 blanks. In conclusion we achieved a strong improvement of the critical parameters of both refractive index homogeneity and striae for large size lens blanks up to 270mm diameter.
F2 lens designs considering Intrinsic birefringence imposed more severe challenges to CaF2 manufacturing technology. In order to compensate the intrinsic birefringence other crystal orientations (100) / (110) are necessary. These other crystal orientation beside (111) require individual process optimization. In this paper the achieved improvements for CaF2 lens blank material will be presented. Furthermore the conversion of stress birefringence results from 633nm to 193nm or 157nm is unclear until now. At wavelength birefringence measurement results of different orientated lens blanks will be shown and discussed.
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