Absolute dosimetry for extreme ultraviolet lithography

The accurate measurement of an exposure dose reaching the wafer on an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithographic system has been a technical challenge directly applicable to the evaluation of candidate EUV resist materials and calculating lithography system throughputs. We have developed a dose monitoring sensor system that can directly measure EUV intensities at the wafer plane of a prototype EUV lithographic system. This sensor system, located on the wafer stage adjacent to the electrostatic chuck used to grip wafers, operates by translating the sensor into the aerial image, typically illuminating an "open" (unpatterned) area on the reticle. The absolute signal strength can be related to energy density at the wafer, and thus used to determine resist sensitivity, and the signal as a function of position can be used to determine illumination uniformity at the wafer plane. Spectral filtering to enhance the detection of 13.4 nm radiation was incorporated into the sensor. Other critical design parameters include the packaging and amplification technologies required to place this device into the space and vacuum constraints of a EUV lithography environment. We describe two approaches used to determine the absolute calibration of this sensor. The first conventional approach requires separate characterization of each element of the sensor. A second novel approach uses x-ray emission from a mildly radioactive iron source to calibrate the absolute response of the entire sensor system (detector and electronics) in a single measurement.