LAUSR

Defect inspection on lithographic substrates, masks, reticles, and wafers is an important quality assurance process in semiconductor manufacturing. Coherent Fourier scatterometry (CFS) using laser beams with a Gaussian spatial profile is the standard workhorse routinely used as an in-line inspection tool to achieve high throughput. As the semiconductor industry advances toward shrinking critical dimensions in high volume manufacturing using extreme ultraviolet lithography, new techniques that enable high-sensitivity, high-throughput, and in-line inspection are critically needed. Here we introduce a set of novel defect inspection techniques based on bright-field CFS using coherent beams that carry orbital angular momentum (OAM). One of these techniques, the differential OAM CFS, is particularly unique because it does not rely on referencing to a pre-established database in the case of regularly patterned structures with reflection symmetry. The differential OAM CFS exploits OAM beams with opposite wavefront or phase helicity to provide contrast in the presence of detects. We numerically investigated the performance of these techniques on both amplitude and phase defects and demonstrated their superior advantages-up to an order of magnitude higher in signal-to-noise ratio-over the conventional Gaussian beam CFS. These new techniques will enable increased sensitivity and robustness for in-line nanoscale defect inspection and the concept could also benefit x-ray scattering and scatterometry in general.