Impacts of optical factors on L pattern in ArF immersion lithography

The impacts of optical factors including flare, polarized light and geometrical aberration on 65 nm L pattern in ArF immersion lithography were calculated using the commercial software Prolith 9.0 and the impact rules of these optical factors on imaging quality and lithography performances of L pattern were studied. The results show that the flare leads to reduction of image contrast, shrinkage of line-width and increment of pattern place error. The astigmatism, coma and spherical aberration result in decrement of the image contrast, increment of line-width and pattern place error. An appropriate polarized light can be applied to improve the image contrast and it also can restrain sensitivities of L pattern to flare and aberration.