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US 10,151,631 B2Granted
Spectroscopy with tailored spectral sampling
AssigneeKLA-Tencor Corporation
InventorsMark A. Neil, Johannes D. de Veer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A spectrometer for tailored spectral sampling includes a dispersive element for spatially dispersing a spectrum of a light beam, a detector including a plurality of pixels distributed along a sampling direction, and a spectrum reshaping element including at least one of a reflective surface or a transmissive surface for reshaping the spatially-dispersed spectrum of the light beam from the dispersive element along the sampling direction to provide a selected distribution of the spectrum to the detector. The detector may spatially sample the spectrum of incident light with the plurality of pixels at selected spectral intervals based on the selected distribution of the spectrum.
Claims25
A spectrometer, comprising:
- a dispersive element for spatially dispersing a spectrum of a light beam according to a first spatial distribution of spectral components;
- a detector including a plurality of pixels distributed along a sampling direction, wherein the detector is configured to spatially sample incident light with the plurality of pixels;
- and
- a spectrum reshaping element including at least one of a reflective surface or a transmissive surface having a surface profile that receives the spectral components of the light beam from the dispersive element at selected locations on the spectrum reshaping element based on the first spatial distribution and directs the spectral components along location-dependent paths to provide a second spatial distribution of spectral components along the sampling direction to the detector, wherein the second spatial distribution of spectral components at the detector provides a substantially linear relationship between photon energies of the spectral components and positions of the spectral components on the detector over a selected spectral range, wherein the detector samples the spectrum at substantially uniform intervals of photon energy.
1 more element
A metrology tool, comprising:
- an illumination source configured to illuminate an object;
- a spectroscopy device comprising:
- a dispersive element for spatially dispersing a spectrum of a light beam emanating from the object in response to illumination from the illumination source according to a first spatial distribution of spectral components;
- a detector including a plurality of pixels distributed along a sampling direction, wherein the detector is configured to spatially sample incident light with the plurality of pixels;
- and
- a spectrum reshaping element including at least one of a reflective surface or a transmissive surface having a surface profile tailored, based on a dispersion of the dispersive element, to receive the first spatial distribution of spectral components from the dispersive element and provide a second spatial distribution of spectral components to the detector, wherein the second spatial distribution of spectral components at the detector provides a substantially linear relationship between photon energies of the spectral components and positions of the spectral components on the detector over a selected spectral range, wherein the detector samples the spectrum at substantially uniform intervals of photon energy;
- and
- a controller communicatively coupled to the spectroscopy device, the controller including one or more processors configured to execute instructions configured to cause the one or more processors to perform one or metrology measurements of the object based on the spectrum sampled by the detector.
5 more elements
A method, comprising:
- generating, with a dispersive element, a spatially-dispersed spectrum of a light beam according to a first spatial distribution of spectral components;
- reshaping, with at least one of a reflective surface or a transmissive surface having a surface profile tailored to receive the spectral components of the light, based on the first spatial distribution of spectral components and direct the spectral components along location-dependent paths to provide a second spatial distribution of spectral components to a detector, wherein the second spatial distribution of spectral components at the detector provides a substantially linear relationship between photon energies of the spectral components and positions of the spectral components on the detector over a selected spectral range;
- and
- sampling, with the detector, the spectrum at substantially uniform intervals of photon energy.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.