Spectroscopy with Tailored Spectral Sampling
AssigneeKLA-Tencor Corporation
InventorsMark A. Neil, Johannes D. de Veer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
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.
Claims26
A spectrometer, comprising:
- a dispersive element for spatially dispersing a spectrum of a light beam;
- 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 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, wherein the detector samples the spectrum at selected spectral intervals based on the selected distribution of the spectrum.
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;
- 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 to reshape 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, wherein the detector samples the spectrum at selected spectral intervals based on the selected distribution of the spectrum;
- 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.
A method, comprising:
- generating, with a dispersive element, a spatially-dispersed spectrum of a light beam;
- reshaping, with at least one of a reflective surface or a transmissive surface, the spatially-dispersed spectrum of the light beam to provide a selected distribution of the spectrum to a detector;
- and
- sampling, with the detector, the spectrum at selected spectral intervals based on the selected distribution of the spectrum.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.