Projection Lithography System Research Articles

Patterned microsphere-lens projection lithography using an electrohydrodynamic-jet-printing-assisted assembly

Microlens arrays have been widely used in the fields of micro-optics and micro- and nanofabrication. Traditional preparation methods utilize commercial photoresists and thermosetting materials, thereby restricting the optical properties of microlenses. In recent years, significant advancements have been achieved in near-field super-resolution imaging by utilizing microspheres and forming arrays of microsphere lenses via self-assembly. However, self-assembly approaches lack flexibility in terms of pattern selection. This study proposes a method that utilizes electrohydrodynamic jet (E-jet) printing to code ultraviolet (UV)-curable adhesives and assist in the assembly of patterned microsphere-lens arrays. Simulation results demonstrate that the UV-curable adhesive has little impact on the optical properties of the microsphere lens. Moreover, the microsphere lens exhibits a superior imaging resolution compared with traditional microlenses. A projection-lithography system is developed to achieve an accurate alignment between the focal plane of the microsphere lenses and the plane of the photoresist, facilitating the fabrication of patterned nanostructures. The lithographic nanostructures have a minimum feature size of 850 nm. This method enables the fabrication of arrays of microsphere lenses with arbitrary patterns and presents an inexpensive and simple strategy for fabricating micro- and nanostructure arrays with submicrometer features.

Customized construction of microscale multi-component biostructures for cellular applications

In vitro biofabrication is employed in fields such as biomedicine and those using biomimetic materials. However, it suffers from drawbacks such as low resolution, applicability on a limited range of components, and difficulty in purposefully depositing specific cells in three-dimensional space. Hence, this paper proposes a digital micromirror device-based optical projection lithography (DOPL) system for producing multi-component microstructures with resolutions of tens of microns and explores the behavior of cells with these structures. The printability and mechanical properties of these microstructures were investigated to assess their reproduction quality and the ability to control their structural characteristics. The results show that when DOPL is used with polyethylene glycol dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) hydrogel, an array of micropits can be fabricated within a few minutes. Furthermore, uniform cell spheroids form rapidly with high throughput when they are seeded into the micropits. Additionally, PEGDMA and gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) were used to construct multi-component microstructures, and it was demonstrated that cells with various morphologies selectively adhere to the heterogeneous interface. In addition, DOPL could enable deposition of various cells for constructing microenvironments and for drug screening. Finally, a biomimetic peritoneal model was constructed. Overall, this work demonstrates the versatility of this system and its potential in cellular applications such as cell behavior research, drug screening, and tissue engineering.

Lithographic pattern quality enhancement of DMD lithography with spatiotemporal modulated technology.

In this paper, we propose spatiotemporal modulation projection lithography (STPL) technology, which is a spatiotemporal modulation technology applied to the conventional digital micromirror device (DMD) projection lithography system. Through coordinating the micro-movement of the piezoelectric stage, the flexible pattern generation of DMD, and the exposure time, the proposed STPL enables us to fabricate a microstructure with smooth edges, accurate linewidth, and accurate line position. Further application on fabricating a diffraction lens has been implemented. The edge sawtooth of the Fresnel zone plate fabricated by using the STPL is reduced to 0.3 µm, the error between the actual measured linewidth and the ideal linewidth is only within ±0.1µm, and the focal length is 15 mm, which is basically consistent with the designed focal length. These results indicated that STPL can serve a significant role in the micromanufacturing field for achieving high-fidelity microdevices.

Biomimetic construction of peritoneum to imitate peritoneal metastasis using digital micromirror device-based optical projection lithography.

Currently, the mechanisms underlying the peritoneal metastasis of gastric cancer cells and the function of mesothelial cells during this process are unclear, primarily due to the absence of an effective in vitro peritoneal model. In this study, we constructed a biomimetic peritoneal model using a digital micromirror device-based optical projection lithography system. This model enabled the simulation of a damaged peritoneum, which allowed for a comparison of the characteristics of an undamaged peritoneum, such as porosity, mechanical properties, and surface morphology, with those of a damaged peritoneum. Biological inertness and removability of the polyethylene glycol dimethacrylate hydrogel were exploited to fabricate an arrayed heterogeneous interface that imitated a damaged human peritoneum. The porous structure of the peritoneum was achieved by adjusting the ratio of collagen I to gelatin methacryloyl; this structure of the peritoneum might contribute to its shock absorption property. Atomic force microscopy characterization showed that the outermost layers of the model peritoneum and real peritoneum were similar in surface morphology and mechanical properties. Furthermore, we reproduced the process of peritoneal metastasis in vitro. The numbers of gastric cancer cells that adhered to the heterogeneous interface were different, and mesothelial cells played an essential role in peritoneal metastasis. Our findings indicate that this model can be utilized in preclinical drug screening and personalized therapy.

Fabrication of high fill-factor aspheric microlens array by dose-modulated lithography and low temperature thermal reflow

A cost-effective fabrication method for high quality and high fill-factor aspheric microlens arrays (MLAs) is developed. In this method, the complex shape of aspheric microlens is pre-modeled via dose modulation in a digital micromirror device (DMD) based maskless projection lithography system. Digital masks for several bottom layers are replaced from circle to hexagon for the purpose of enhancing the fill-factor of MLAs, then a low temperature thermal reflow process is conducted, after which the average surface roughness of microlens is improved to ~ 0.427 nm while the pre-modeled profile keeps unchanged. Experimental results show that the fabricated aspheric MLAs have almost 100% fill-factor, high shape accuracy and high surface quality. The presented method may provide a promising approach for rapidly fabricating high quality and high fill-factor aspheric microlens in a simple and low-cost way.

Fabrication of Electromagnetically-Driven Tilted Microcoil on Polyimide Capillary Surface for Potential Single-Fiber Endoscope Scanner Application

The design and fabrication of a Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS)-based tilted microcoil on a polyimide capillary are reported in this paper, proposed for an electromagnetically-driven single-fiber endoscope scanner application. The parameters of the tilted microcoil were optimized by simulation. It is proved that the largest driving force could be achieved when the tilt-angle, the pitch and the coil turns of the designed microcoil were 60°, 80 µm and 20, respectively. The modal simulation of the designed fiber scanner was carried out. The prototypes of the tilted microcoils were fabricated on the surface of polyimide capillary with 1 mm-diameter using our developed cylindrical projection lithography system. The dimensions of the two tilted microcoils were as follows: one was tilt-angle 45°, line width 10 ± 0.2 µm, coil pitch 78.5 ± 0.5 µm, and the other was tilt-angle 60°, line width 10 ± 0.2 µm, coil pitch 81.5 ± 0.5 µm. Finally, a direct mask-less electroplating process was employed to fabricate the copper microcoil with 15 µm thickness on the gold (Au) seed-layer, and the corresponding line width was expanded to 40 µm.

High-numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet scanner for 8-nm lithography and beyond

Current extreme ultraviolet (EUV) projection lithography systems exploit a projection lens with a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.33. It is expected that these will be used in mass production in the 2018/2019 timeframe. By then, the most difficult layers at the 7-nm logic and the mid-10-nm DRAM nodes will be exposed. These systems are a more economical alternative to multiple-exposure by 193 argon fluoride immersion scanners. To enable cost-effective shrink by EUV lithography down to 8-nm half pitch, a considerably larger NA is needed. As a result of the increased NA, the incidence angles of the light rays at the mask increase significantly. Consequently, the shadowing and the variation of the multilayer reflectivity deteriorate the aerial image contrast to unacceptably low values at the current 4× magnification. The only solution to reduce the angular range at the mask is to increase the magnification. Simulations show that the magnification has to be doubled to 8× to overcome the shadowing effects. Assuming that the mask infrastructure will not change the mask form factor, this would inevitably lead to a field size that is a quarter of the field size of the current 0.33-NA step and scan systems and reduce the throughput (TPT) of the high-NA scanner to a value below 100 wafers per hour unless additional measures are taken. This paper presents an anamorphic step and scan system capable of printing fields that are half the field size of the current full field. The anamorphic system has the potential to achieve a TPT in excess of 150 wafers per hour by increasing the transmission of the optics, as well as increasing the acceleration of the wafer stage and mask stage. This makes it an economically viable lithography solution.

Method of pupil shaping for off-axis illumination in optical lithography

Off-axis illumination is one of the key resolution enhancement technologies in projection lithography systems. Phase type diffractive optical elements are adopted by most of the lithography machine manufacturers to realize off-axis illumination. In this paper, a method of pupil shaping for off-axis illumination in optical lithography is introduced which contains a zoom beam expander, circularly symmetric diffractive optical elements, and a Fourier lens. The method could produce the required illumination pattern for off-axis illumination at the pupil plane. Compared with the conventional method of off-axis illumination, the method in this paper could eliminate deterioration of the pupil thoroughly and reduces the difficulty of the optical design of the zoom lens. Based on this method, several circularly symmetric diffractive optical elements are designed for experiments, and a remarkable improvement in eliminating deterioration of the pupil is observed compared with the conventional method.

厚膜ネガレジスト用三次元リソグラフィシミュレータの開発

Three-dimensional (3D) photoresist structures fabricated by an optical lithography have been widely used in application fields such as microfluidics, micro total analysis systems (μ-TAS), or biosensors. To date, various 3D lithography methods have been proposed. Here we study 3D thick film photolithography technique using projection lithography system for fabricating complex microstructures used in microfluidics or bio-engineering tools. In this lithography method, prediction of 3D structure profile to be fabricated which depends on the mask pattern, exposure dose and the focus depth is difficult by the existing simulation models. So, this paper reports on the simulation method for single-step negative tone thick film projection lithography. Validity of the proposed simulation approach were confirmed quantitatively by comparing with experimental results and simulated results.

An approach to increase efficiency of DOE based pupil shaping technique for off-axis illumination in optical lithography.

Off axis illumination (OAI) is one of the key resolution enhancement technologies in projection lithography system. Recently, phase type diffractive optical elements (DOEs) are adopted by most of the lithography machine manufactures to realize OAI. In general, the efficiency of the OAI unit is the main consideration compared with uniformity. However, the main goal of the traditional constraint of iterative Fourier transformation algorithm (IFTA) is used to optimize the SNR, while diffraction efficiency is the secondary consideration. Therefore a constraint for IFTA is well designed to increase the efficiency of DOE in this paper. This constraint can guarantee the pole balance at the same time. The main idea of this constraint is to apply amplitude and phase freedoms in the signal window and to control the total energy of each pole. Based on the proposed constraint several DOEs are designed for high NA lithography illumination system. And remarkable improvement in the efficiency is observed compared with the traditional constraint. Furthermore, the efficiency and uniformity could be weighted by adjusting the parameter with extending this constraint to general case. To demonstrate the proposed constraints, experiments are carried out where a spatial light modulator is utilized to represent DOEs.

Protein and cell patterning in closed polymer channels by photoimmobilizing proteins on photografted poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate.

Definable surface chemistry is essential for many applications of microfluidic polymer systems. However, small cross-section channels with a high surface to volume ratio enhance passive adsorption of molecules that depletes active molecules in solution and contaminates the channel surface. Here, we present a one-step photochemical process to coat the inner surfaces of closed microfluidic channels with a nanometer thick layer of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), well known to strongly reduce non-specific adsorption, using only commercially available reagents in an aqueous environment. The coating consists of PEG diacrylate (PEGDA) covalently grafted to polymer surfaces via UV light activation of the water soluble photoinitiator benzoyl benzylamine, a benzophenone derivative. The PEGDA coating was shown to efficiently limit the adsorption of antibodies and other proteins to <5% of the adsorbed amount on uncoated polymer surfaces. The coating could also efficiently suppress the adhesion of mammalian cells as demonstrated using the HT-29 cancer cell line. In a subsequent equivalent process step, protein in aqueous solution could be anchored onto the PEGDA coating in spatially defined patterns with a resolution of <15 μm using an inverted microscope as a projection lithography system. Surface patterns of the cell binding protein fibronectin were photochemically defined inside a closed microfluidic device that was initially homogeneously coated by PEGDA. The resulting fibronectin patterns were shown to greatly improve cell adhesion compared to unexposed areas. This method opens for easy surface modification of closed microfluidic systems through combining a low protein binding PEG-based coating with spatially defined protein patterns of interest.

Facile Photoimmobilization of Proteins onto Low-Binding PEG-Coated Polymer Surfaces

Immobilization of proteins onto polymer surfaces usually requires specific reactive functional groups. Here, we show an easy one-step method to conjugate protein covalently onto almost any polymer surface, including low protein-binding poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), without the requirement for the presence of specific functional groups. Several types of proteins, including alkaline phosphatase, bovine serum albumin, and polyclonal antibodies, were photoimmobilized onto a PEG-coated polymer surface using a water-soluble benzophenone as photosensitizer. Protein functionality after immobilization was verified for both enzymes and antibodies, and their presence on the surface was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and confocal fluorescence microscopy. Conjugation of capture antibody onto the PEG coating was employed for a simplified ELISA protocol without the need for blocking uncoated surface areas, showing ng/mL sensitivity to a cytokine antigen target. Moreover, spatially patterned attachment of fluorescently labeled protein onto the low-binding PEG-coated surface was achieved with a projection lithography system that enabled the creation of micrometer-sized protein features.

Mixed multi-region design of diffractive optical element for projection exposure system

The diffractive optical element (DOE) is widely used to generate various illumination modes in the projection lithography system. The working principle and design methods of the DOE are discussed in detail in this paper. A mixed multi-region design method is proposed to calculate the phase of DOE based on the poor spatial coherence of excimer laser, using the Gerchberg–Saxton (GS) algorithm. The DOEs generating circular, dipole and quadrupole illumination modes are designed and simulated by three different methods: single region design, repeated multi-region design and mixed multi-region design. The performance of these DOEs are compared and analyzed with these three design methods. The mixed multi-region design method is used to design the DOEs generating three illumination modes, the diffraction efficiencies are greater than 85%, and the non-uniformities of illumination are less than 3%. The analysis results indicate that the DOE designed by the mixed multi-region design can achieve higher diffraction efficiency and illumination uniformity of the far-field intensity distribution without modifying the GS algorithm.

用于投影光刻机光瞳整形的衍射光学元件设计

用于投影光刻机光瞳整形的衍射光学元件设计

Study on rotation-free combined immersion magneto-electrostatic lenses

Demagnified rotation-free image formed by combined immersion magneto-electrostatic lenses is beneficial for projection lithography systems with respect to pattern stitching. Based on Busch theorem, the image-rotation in combined immersion magnetic electrostatic lenses is investigated, and consequently this image-rotation free condition is derived. A practical lens based upon this condition is constructed by parametrically optimizing its magnetic field. The numerically computed results show that its image-rotation-angle for this system is close to zero.

Computational lithography: Exhausting the resolution limits of 193-nm projection lithography systems

In the recent past, scaling of semiconductor fabrication systems has been dominated by wavelength and numerical aperture modifications. This is now no longer the case for 193-nm immersion projection lithography (193i) systems as there are no technical paths for continued benefit from the in these areas. Instead, a range of techniques including patterning processes and system optimization are being used to push the limits of the system. This paper will review the elements that are now driving scaling for a system of fixed wavelength and numerical aperture.

Fully model-based methodology for simultaneous correction of extreme ultraviolet mask shadowing and proximity effects

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is a promising candidate for high-volume manufacturing at the 22-nm half-pitch node and beyond. EUV projection lithography systems need to rely on reflective optical elements and masks with oblique illumination for image formation. It leads to undesired effects such as pattern shift and horizontal-to-vertical critical dimension bias, which are generally reported as shadowing. Rule-based approaches proposed to compensate for shadowing include changing mask topography, introducing mask defocus, and biasing patterns differently at different slit positions. However, the electromagnetic interaction between the incident light and the mask topography with complicated geometric patterns, such as optical diffraction, not only causes shadowing but also induces proximity effects. This phenomenon cannot be easily taken into account by rule-based corrections and thus imposes a challenge on a partially model-based correction flow, the so-called combination of rule- and model-based corrections. A fully model-based correction flow, which integrates an in-house optical proximity correction algorithm with rigorous three-dimensional mask simulation, is proposed to simultaneously compensate for shadowing and proximity effects. Simulation results for practical circuit layouts indicate that the fully model-based correction flow significantly outperforms the partially model-based one in terms of correction accuracy, while the total run time is slightly increased.

Robust Control Design for Vibration Isolation of an Electron Beam Projection Lithography System

This paper describes vibration control for an electron beam projection lithography (EPL) system. Two kinds of disturbances should be considered for an EPL: load disturbances from the machine and ground disturbances from the environment. However, the suspension settings for insulating these two disturbances conflict with each other. Therefore, we propose a double-layer optical table and apply disturbance response decomposing (DRD) techniques to independently control the disturbances. We use a passive control structure to isolate the ground disturbances, and an active control structure to suppress load disturbances. In addition, symmetric transformation is applied to decouple a full optical table into bounce/pitch and roll/warp half-table models, which can be further decoupled into quarter-table models to simplify controller design. Finally, we apply robust control techniques to design active controllers. From both simulation and experimental results, the designed H∞ robust controllers are proven effective in reducing EPL system vibrations.

Gas-Assisted Nanoparticle Fluid Magnetic Imprinting Technology in Micro-Lens Manufacture and the Application of Projection Lithography

Traditionally, making light-blocking micro-lens arrays requires not only precise positioning, but also a lot of time and cost. In this study, we try to utilize some innovative technologies. New molds are based on stainless steel plates penetrated by micro-aperture arrays. Together with gas-assisted nanoparticle fluid magnetic imprinting technology, a semi-sphere lens can be shaped by utilizing the properties of surface tension of the plastic film. It can be used to produce the plastic micro-lens array that is capable of light-blocking directly as projection lens. Using optical diffusion film, Fresnel lens, and single mask in centimeter level, we can construct a projection lithography system with micro-lens array. This brand new process technology simplifies the manufacture of micro-lens array with light-blocking capability to just one step. It cuts required time significantly and reduces the cost and pollution remarkably. Finally, we successfully generated some micrometer level pattern arrays on the photoresist layer through the exposal and developing process of this micro-lens array based projection lithography system.

Analysis and Optical Design of 1:1 Projection Lithography System

For the 1:1 laser projection lithography system used to achieve large-area patterning with higher resolutions as well as higher throughput, the key parameters such as the laser beam geometry, the numerical aperture of projection lens, the laser source power and the pulse repetition rate are theoretically analyzed. It is expounded the process of uniform exposure in hexagonal beam shape, the advantages and limitations of 1:1 projection owing to numerical apertures deciding the resolution, as well as the cause of choosing larger laser power and pulse repetition rate. Meanwhile, the projection lens for a unit-magnification, refractive imaging system is tentatively simulationdesigned using ZEMAX optical design software. The optimized three-dimensional layout is plotted. For the designed results, the maximum optical path difference is smaller thanλ /4 within entire visual field. The resolution for feature sizes 10μm can be achieved within depth of focus 400μm by evaluating MTF. The maximum field curvature is within 10μm and the maximum distortion is small than 0.000007%. This fulfills the demands in technical specifications.