Claims
- 1. A method of detecting aberrations in a lens comprising the steps of:
a) providing a mask having an opening (probe) and a surrounding open geometry (pattern), b) projecting a beam through the mask and a lens to an image plane of the lens, and c) identifying lens aberrations from the combined intensity of the beam passing through the opening and the surrounding open geometry in the image plane.
- 2. The method as defined by claim 1 wherein the beam is selected from the group consisting of optical, electromagnetic acoustic, surface wave, and particle.
- 3. The method as defined by claim 2 wherein the beam projecting through the mask is coherent through the open geometry.
- 4. The method as defined by claim 1 wherein the pattern corresponds to the inverse Fourier transform of aberration representations.
- 5. The method as defined by claim 4 wherein each surrounding pattern comprises a plurality of rings concentric with a probe.
- 6. The method as defined by claim 4 wherein the aberrations include coma, astigmatism, spherical and trifoil.
- 7. The method as defined by claim 4 wherein the aberrations include a term or a combination of terms in a general mathematical representation such as Zernike polynomials.
- 8. The method as defined by claim 1 wherein step c) includes comparing an image in the image plane with known images for a plurality of aberrations.
- 9. The method as defined by claim 8 wherein the aberrations include coma, astigmatism, spherical, and trifoil or any term or combination of terms in a general representation such as with Zernike polynomials.
- 10. The method as defined by claim 8 wherein a combined intensity pattern of the image includes spillover between the probe and the geometry which becomes intermixed in passing through the lens.
- 11. The method as defined by claim 10 wherein the beam comprises a collimated light beam.
- 12. The method as defined by claim 10 wherein the lens comprises a plurality of lenses in a lens system.
- 13. The method as defined by claim 10 wherein the surrounding pattern comprises a plurality of rings concentric with the opening.
- 14. The method as defined by claim 13 wherein the rings are modulated in phase in an azimuthal direction in accordance with the rotational order of a Zernike polynomial.
- 15. The method as defined by claim 1 wherein the lens comprises a plurality of lenses in a lens system.
- 16. The method as defined by claim 1 wherein the surrounding pattern comprises a plurality of rings concentric with the opening.
- 17. The method as defined by claim 1 wherein step c) includes measuring the combined image and comparing the measurements to an individual image of the probe and pattern without aberrations.
- 18. The method as defined by claim 17 wherein the aberrations include coma, astigmatism, spherical, and trifoil.
- 19. The method as defined by claim 17 wherein the aberrations include a term or a combination of terms in a general mathematical representation such as Zernike polynomials.
- 20. The method as defined by claim 17 wherein a combined intensity pattern of the image includes spillover between the probe and the geometry which became intermixed in passing through the lens, the probe providing an interferometric reference.
- 21. The method as defined by claim 20 wherein the beam comprises a collimated light beam.
- 22. The method as defined by claim 20 wherein the lens comprises a plurality of lenses in a lens system.
- 23. The method as defined by claim 20 wherein the surrounding pattern comprises a plurality of rings concentric with the opening.
- 24. The method as defined by claim 17 wherein the measurements are obtained indirectly.
- 25. The method as defined by claim 24 wherein photoresist is exposed to the probe and pattern.
- 26. The method as defined by claim 17 wherein the measurements are obtained directly from image intensity.
- 27. The method as defined by claim 17 wherein the surrounding pattern comprises a plurality of rings concentric with the opening.
- 28. A method of testing vision in a patient comprising the steps of:
a) providing a mask having a plurality of openings (probes) and surrounding open geometries (patterns), b) illuminating the mask, with a signal having coherence in passing through the mask openings, c) viewing the illuminated mask by one eye of the patient, and d) comparing by the patient of the viewed illuminated mask for brighter and darker probes as a measure of pupil aberrations.
- 29. The method as defined by claim 28 wherein each surrounding pattern comprises a plurality of rings concentric with a probe.
- 30. The method as defined by claim 29 wherein the patterns correspond to the inverse Fourier transform of aberration representations.
- 31. The method as defined by claim 30 wherein the aberrations include a term or a combination of terms in a general mathematical representation such as Zernike polynomials.
- 32. The method as defined in claim 31 and further including the step of e) determining from the inverse Fourier transform which surrounding pattern shape is most affected from a given description of the optical Path Difference (OPD) such as a set of Zernike coefficients.
- 33. The method as defined by claim 31 and further including the step of e) determining from the inverse Fourier transform direction and magnitude of complexly interrelated changes to optimize imaging.
- 34. A method of locating areas in a mask layout for an integrated circuit which are impacted by aberrations in projection printing comprising the steps of:
a) generating a description of a mask layout, b) generating a description of an aberration function, c) sequentially comparing the aberration function to the mask layout as the mask layout is scanned, and d) identifying any area in the mask layout tending to match the aberration function.
- 35. The method as defined by claim 34 wherein step c) rank orders all mask layout edges, corners, and other geometries according to degree of similarity to the aberration function.
- 36. The method as defined by claim 35 wherein the description of the aberration function is modeled as producing spillover between mask openings with a localized pattern that is the inverse Fourier transform of the optical path difference function in the pupil of the projection printing system.
- 37. The method as defined by claim 36 wherein step d) utilizes a core matching procedure where polygons are split into rectangles.
- 38. The method as defined by claim 37 wherein the polygons are split into a close-to-minimum number of rectangles, the entire input layout is partitioned into groups of rectangles, and the edges and corners are extracted from the rectangles and used to filter the match locations.
- 39. The method as defined by claim 37 wherein step d) estimates line printed image changes due to spillover in a lens system of the projection printing.
- 40. The method as defined by claim 37 and further including step e) modifying the mask layout in response to identified matches with an aberration function.
- 41. The method as defined by claim 40 wherein step b) includes generating descriptions of a plurality of aberration functions and step c) compares the plurality of aberration functions to the mask layout.
- 42. The method as defined in claim 34 wherein step b) includes generating descriptions of a plurality of aberration functions and step c) compares the plurality of aberration functions to the mask layout.
CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims priority from co-pending provisional application serial No. 60/322,381, filed Sep. 11, 2001, which is incorporated herein for all purposes.
STATEMENT AS TO RIGHTS TO INVENTIONS MADE UNDER FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
[0002] The U.S. Government has rights in the disclosed invention pursuant to DARPA Contract MDA 972-97-1-0010 and DARPA Grant MDA 972-01-1-0021 with the University of California at Berkeley.
Provisional Applications (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
|
60322381 |
Sep 2001 |
US |