Radiation imagery chemistry: process – composition – or product th – Imaging affecting physical property of radiation sensitive... – Making electrical device
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-22
2004-11-02
McPherson, John A. (Department: 1756)
Radiation imagery chemistry: process, composition, or product th
Imaging affecting physical property of radiation sensitive...
Making electrical device
C430S396000, C430S394000, C430S397000, C355S055000, C355S069000, C355S053000, C355S067000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06811953
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exposure apparatus, a method for manufacturing thereof, an exposure method, and a method for manufacturing a microdevice. In particular, it is related to a multi-scanning projection exposure apparatus, a method for manufacturing thereof, method for exposing, and method for manufacturing a microdevice, which projection exposes the pattern of a mask onto a photosensitive substrate while moving the mask and the photosensitive substrate relative to a projection optical system that is comprised, for example, of a plurality of reflection/refraction projection optical modules.
2. Related Technical Background
In recent years, the use of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels have become predominant as display components of devices such as word processors, personal computers and televisions. LCD panels are fabricated by patterning transparent thin electrodes onto a substrate in a desired shape using a photolithographic technique. As the apparatus for this photolithographic step, a projection aligner is utilized to projection expose an original image pattern that is formed on a mask onto a photoresist layer on a substrate using a projection optical system.
Recently though, there is greater demand for the size of these LCD panels to be made larger, and in order to meet this demand, an increase in the size of the exposure region in this type of aligner is also desired. In order to increase the size of this exposure region, so-called multi-scanning projection aligners have been proposed. In the multi-scanning projection aligner, projection exposure of the pattern of a mask is performed while moving a mask and a substrate relative to a projection optical system that is comprised of a plurality of projection optical modules. It is noted here that the projection optical module may also be referred to as a projection optical unit. In the following, this is also included in the definition of a projection optical unit.
Also, in the multi-scanning projection aligner thus formed, the light that is supplied from the illumination optical system is incident to each projection optical module via a mask. The light that is incident to each projection optical module reaches the substrate after it passes through the lenses of each projection optical module. A portion of the light that is reflected on the surface of the substrate becomes return light and again passes through the lenses of each projection optical module.
In this manner, when the transmitted light from the mask and the reflected light from the substrate pass through the lenses of each projection optical module, a portion of the light is absorbed by the lenses. As a result, it may be considered that the optical characteristics of each projection optical module, for example the positioning of the image planes, thereof in a focusing direction, may change because of the heat deformation due to optical absorption of the lenses that form each projection module.
In this case, as described in detail below, the image plane of each projection optical module is not flat, but is actually curved due to curvature of field. And, the heat deformation of the lenses due to optical illumination causes not only the fluctuation in the image plane positioning for each projection optical module, but also changes in the curvature of field. Accordingly, even if, for example, the center or the mean positioning of the image plane of each projection optical module are controlled to be the same height, the portions that contribute to formation of the partially overlapping exposure region in the image planes of the projection optical modules that are next to each other are separated in a certain focusing direction, thus making it impossible to perform satisfactory overlapping exposures.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an exposure apparatus, an exposure apparatus manufacturing method, and an exposure method capable of preventing changes in optical characteristics due to heat in projection optical modules caused by light.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an exposure apparatus, and manufacturing method thereof, capable of performing favorable overlapping exposure by setting at nearly the same position in the focusing direction the portions that contribute to the formation of partially overlapping regions in the image planes of projection optical modules that are next to each other, even if the position of the image planes of each projection optical module should change because of thermal deformation of the lenses, for example.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an exposure apparatus, and manufacturing method thereof, capable of performing favorable exposure, even if the optical characteristics of each projection optical module should change because of thermal deformation of the lenses, for example, by adjusting the changed optical characteristics and correcting other optical characteristics, which may be worsened due to the adjustment.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method of fabricating a favorable large area microdevice (e.g., a semiconductor device, a LCD device, a thin-film magnetic head, etc.) by performing favorable exposure utilizing an exposure apparatus of the present invention.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an exposure apparatus and an exposure method, capable of substantially suppressing (controlling) the changes in the optical characteristics of each projection optical unit due to optical absorption in lenses.
According to an aspect of the present invention, an exposure apparatus, comprising an illumination optical system, which illuminates a mask with a predetermined pattern, a projection optical system, which includes a plurality of projection optical modules that are arrayed in a predetermined direction in order to form partially overlapping exposure regions on a photo sensitive substrate, and projects the pattern of the mask onto the photosensitive substrate, and a focusing adjustment unit, which aligns each respective image plane of the plurality of projection optical modules with respect to the photosensitive substrate in a certain focusing direction, wherein the focusing adjustment unit sets at a substantially same position in the certain focusing direction, certain portions that contribute to formation of the partially overlapping exposure regions on image planes of projection optical modules that are next to each other.
According to another aspect of the present invention, an exposure apparatus comprising, an illumination optical system, which illuminates a mask with a predetermined pattern, a projection optical system, which includes a plurality of projection optical modules that are arrayed in a predetermined direction, and projects the pattern of the mask onto a photosensitive substrate, a first adjusting unit, which compensates a change of a first optical characteristic in accordance with time passage with respect to at least one projection optical module of the plurality of projection optical modules, and a second adjusting unit, which compensates a second optical characteristic that differs from the first optical characteristic and is caused by to the first adjusting unit.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, an exposure apparatus comprising, an illumination optical system, which illuminates a mask with a predetermined pattern, a projection optical system, which includes a plurality of projection optical modules that are arrayed in a predetermined direction, and projects the pattern of the mask onto a photosensitive substrate, a first adjusting unit, which compensates a change of an optical characteristic with respect to at least one of the plurality of projection optical modules that develop due to heat deformation of at least one optical component that is included in each of respective the plurality of projection optical modules, a second adjusting unit, which compensates a change of an optical characteris
Hatada Hitoshi
Iguchi Masahiro
Kato Masaki
Koyama Motoo
Shirasu Hiroshi
Chacko-Davis Deborah
McPherson John A.
Nikon Corporation
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