A judgement method for mosaic grating error based on diffraction wavefront measured under multiple incident angles

Abstract

Holographic exposure mosaic technology is a feasible solution to fabricate large-area pulse compression gratings, where the mosaic grating method of developing region by region is one of the mosaic approaches. In this method, an exposed area of the substrate is firstly developed, and then the developed photoresist grating mask is put back into the previous exposure system. The next area grating mask is fabricated by aligning the interference fringes formed by the exposure beam and the developed real grating. However, since the unequal exposure and inconsistent development, the groove shapes of grating masks in two areas, including groove depth and duty cycle, will be different. When detecting the mosaic grating error, the differences of the groove shapes will cause the dislocation in the -1-order reflected diffraction wavefront at gap of the mosaic grating. It will be superimposed on the phase change caused by the lateral displacement error, so that the judgement of lateral displacement error will be seriously interfered. To solve this problem, the measurement method of the 0-order diffraction wavefront under multiple incident angles is proposed to precisely judge the lateral displacement error in the mosaic grating. In this paper, the grating diffraction analysis program based on the rigorous coupled-wave analysis is firstly written, and then the initial phase of 0-order reflected diffraction wavefront of mosaic grating mask is calculated. Subsequently, the sample is tested by atomic force microscopy and interferometer. By importing the measurement data into the searching program, the groove parameters of grating masks are obtained by the library matching method. Then, the lateral displacement error of the mosaic grating is further deduced. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed judgment method is confirmed by the experiment.