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Agilent spectrophotometer: the "optical engine" that empowers the performance testing of optical components in lithography machines
Date: 2025-10-29Read: 0
With the continuous advancement of advanced process nodes, the position of 193nm ArF excimer laser lithography machine in semiconductor manufacturing is becoming increasingly important. It contains a large number of high-precision optical components inside, such as projection lenses, masks, polarizers, depolarizers, mirrors, etc. The optical performance of these components directly determines the resolution, uniformity, and yield of the chip pattern.
How to accurately evaluate the transmittance, reflectivity, polarization response, and angle dependence of these components during the research and production process?The Agilent Cary4000/5000/6000i/7000 series UV Vis NIR spectrophotometer is the ideal solution for this challenge.
The following are common optical components and their testing requirements in lithography machines:
Transmittance testing of lenses, windows, masks, etc
45 ° reflectivity test of reflector
Extinction ratio test of polarizer and depolarizer
These testing items and requirements place high demands on the testing capability of spectrophotometers, and the difficulty of testing mainly lies in:
193 nm belongs to the deep ultraviolet (DUV) region, and small environmental changes and sample contamination can affect the absorption of light in this band. Therefore, the testing process requires high stability of the equipment.
Small errors in the transmittance, reflectivity, extinction ratio, and other indicators of photolithography components can lead to pattern distortion or process failure, thus placing high demands on the accuracy and repeatability of detection equipment.
The 193 nm large angle test requires the introduction of a polarizer, but the polarizer material in this wavelength band is expensive, difficult to process, and prone to contamination.
The Agilent Cary4000/5000/6000i/7000 uses a deuterium lamp light source in the ultraviolet region, which can cover a wavelength range as low as 175 nm. It is equipped with a photomultiplier tube (PMT) detector to ensure ultra-high sensitivity response in low frequency bands; At the same time, the instrument adopts a dual beam design, which can correct light source fluctuations and environmental interference in real time, effectively improving the repeatability and accuracy of testing; In addition, users can customize deep ultraviolet polarization accessories, which can be used in conjunction with UMA accessory applications to achieve reflection measurement and extinction ratio measurement under large angle s/p polarization.
Left: Agilent Cary4000/5000/6000i/7000
Right picture: Agilent Cary7000
The testing capability of Agilent Cary series UV Vis NIR spectrophotometer in low frequency band:
Host testing quartz plate: 190-270 nm, 0 ° transmittance, 10 repeated measurements.
Ten tests were conducted at 193 nm, with a maximum minimum range of 0.02% T.
Host testing quartz plate 0 ° transmittance 10 times repeatability results
Fully automatic multi angle transmittance and absolute reflectance (UMA) accessories, paired with customized extreme ultraviolet polarizer for testing aluminum plated mirrors: 190-380 nm, 45 ° absolute reflectance.
Rp and Rs have good signal-to-noise ratio at 193 nm under large angles.
UMA accessory test aluminum mirror 45 ° absolute reflectivity result
In today's constantly evolving advanced manufacturing processes, the performance testing of optical components has shifted from being an "optional" to a "critical step".The Agilent Cary4000/5000/6000i/7000 series spectrophotometer, with its high precision, high efficiency, and full functionality, supports applications such as photoresist development, optical component selection, material aging evaluation, and coating consistency verification. It plays an important role in high-precision measurement and analysis in the process, helping engineers quickly locate problems, optimize processes, improve yield, and assist photolithography processes to move towards higher levels.With the continuous development of semiconductor manufacturing technology, the demand for optical component measurement and analysis will become increasingly refined, and the Agilent Cary series will continue to provide solid technical support for this process.