Development of an EUV Microscope with Focused Coherent EUV Based on Coherent Diffraction Imaging Method for Defect Evaluation on an EUV Mask

SUMMARY For evaluation of defects on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) masks at the blank state of manufacturing, we developed a microcoherent EUV scatterometry microscope (micro‐CSM). The illumination source is coherent EUV light with a 140‐nm focus diameter on the defect using a Fresnel zoneplate. This system directly observes the reflection and diffraction signals from a phase defect. The phase and the intensity image of the defect is reconstructed with the diffraction images using ptychography, which is an algorithm of the coherent diffraction imaging. We observed programmed phase defect on a blank EUV mask. Phase distributions of these programmed defects were well reconstructed quantitatively. We also observed actual defects which were inspected by the ABI tool. Actual amplitude defect and phase defect images were reconstructed with intensity and phase contrast. The reconstructed image indicated the defect type of these defect. The micro‐CSM is very powerful tool to evaluate an EUV phase defect.