LAUSR

Abstract In order to estimate the image quality of the polarization (parametric) indirect microscopic imaging (PIMI) system, an edge method based on edge spread-function (ESF) extraction was adopted to estimate the point spread-function (PSF) for PIMI imaging. A standard edge was selected as the imaging object for the ESF extraction. The edge consists of a finite area silicon nitride (SiNx) film deposited on a wafer section of gallium nitride (GaN), which has been demarcated using an atomic force microscope (AFM). In comparisons of the PSF with that of a conventional microscope (CM), the PIMI system has higher sensitivity and intensity contrast for the same spatial resolution. This result indicates that the PIMI method should be more useful for industrial SiNx/GaN measurement situations.