Motorized stages are widely used in the fields of processing and measurement, such as lithography, semiconductor packaging, biochips, and micro/nanostructure characterization. We propose a tightly focused laser marking method for measuring the motion performance of motorized stages. In this method, a test sample is coated with heat-mode resist thin films and is fixed onto motorized stages. A tightly focused laser spot with a size of ∼520 nm irradiates the heat-mode resist thin films, which then absorb the laser energy and are heated. A laser-induced marking of the films’ structural change from an amorphous state to a crystalline state occurs when the temperature exceeds the crystallization threshold temperature. The motion locus and performance of motorized stages can be clearly observed via the marking of the structural change of heat-mode resist thin films, which can be further clarified through the lithography developing process in alkaline or acidic solutions. The measurement results showed that the minimum nonuniformity coefficient of the motorized stages was 0.016, the minimum parallelism error was 80 nm, the minimum positional accuracy was 0.76 μm, and the accuracy of the measurement system was within 80 nm. The test results demonstrate that the motorized stage can achieve high-precision uniaxial motion with a period of 300 nm and biaxial coordinated motion with a period of <3 μm through parameter optimization, thereby reaching its ultimate performance. Compared to the non-interferometric methods, this tightly focused laser marking method has the advantages of strong environmental adaptability and high accuracy. This study provides an effective and convenient approach for the measurement and optimization of the motion performance of motorized stages.
As a crucial part of a high-speed polar coordinate laser writing system, the alignment of the rotatory stage axis and the writing laser optical axis has been a key point that influences the accuracy of the whole system and the fabrication patterns. An alignment method of the rotatory stage axis and the writing laser optical axis is proposed. An alignment system is established and the imaging subsystem is calibrated by a high precision calibration object. A circle center lookup algorithm is applied to find the axis of the rotary stage. The accuracy of the alignment could reach 400 nm. The results of the alignment indicate that the proposed alignment method is a good method for the alignment of the rotary stage axis and the writing laser optical axis. The proposed alignment is useful in the fields of high-resolution maskless laser lithography in polar coordinates.
Auto-focusing methods, including infrared ranging, laser triangulation, ultrasound distance measurement, contrast detection, phase detection, depth from defocus, and depth from focus, are widely applied in laser direct writing system. Concurrently, the samples with an ultra-clean surface may cause the focusing to fail. This paper presents a method based on projection view to solve the auto-focusing problem of ultra-clean sample. A projection view in the Koller illumination path, is projected to the focal plane of the objective lens. One can, use the image of projection view in the charge coupled device (CCD) to evaluate the image definition so as to conduct a fast and accurate auto-focusing. A gray variance fusion model used for focusing accuracy evaluation is proposed. The robustness and accuracy of the auto-focusing are measured experimentally. The influencing factors including illumination condition and sample materials are analyzed. This method is useful for auto-focusing of ultra-clean samples.
In the field of laser photolithography, automatic focusing is a key technology. The focusing degree of the writing light on the sample surface determines the quality of photolithography. In addition to the mask manufacturing in semiconductor industry, autofocus is also widely used in optical imaging and optical information reading. With the increasing demand of semiconductor market, it is necessary to reduce the cost of autofocus as much as possible on the premise of ensuring the accuracy. Dual-quadrant detector(DQD) is a kind of detector combining two photodetectors, in which the common edge of two photodetectors is usually a straight line. In this work, a defocusing detection method using a dual-quadrant detector is proposed, the expression of focusing error signal(FES) is defined. The relationship between defocus amount and FES is analyzed and simulated, accordingly. A focusing error detection system is established to demonstrate the theoretical analysis. The tracking range is up to 20μm, and the tracking accuracy is approximately 50. The theoretical and experimental results indicate that the defocusing detection method with a dual-quadrant detector takes into account the tracking range and tracking accuracy, and has good results. This technology is expected to be used in maskless laser direct writing lithography and optical imaging.
The available information which is sharply increased requires a long time-period and high-capacity preservation method. In this paper, we proposed a method to preserve miniature image in stack structure. A large number of information images with a minimum pixel size of 200 nm were transferred to an AIST thin film using a laser directly writing system. After clearness, the information region was retained and the non-information region was removed. The single-layer information region samples with a thickness of 0.15 mm have high contrast and high transmittance. After being stacked and packaged into a 52-layer structure, each layer information image can be read out directly by an optical microscopy. The tolerance of the material to acid, alkali, and temperature is tested, and the results show that this method has excellent information preservation performance. This work provides a promising solution for future information preservation.
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