High-throughput multi-electron beam system

Abstract

A number of electron beamlets are split from an electron beam. The electron beam passes through an accelerating tube, a beam-limiting aperture, an anode located between the electron beam source and the accelerating tube, a focusing lens downstream of the beam-limiting aperture, and a micro-aperture array downstream of the accelerating tube. The micro-aperture array generates beamlets from the electron beam. The electron beam can be focused from a diverging illumination beam to a telecentric illumination beam.

Description

[Technical field]

[0001] The present disclosure relates to electron beam systems. [Background technology]

[0002] The evolution of the semiconductor manufacturing industry is placing increasing demands on yield management, especially on metrology and inspection systems. Critical dimensions continue to shrink, yet the industry must reduce the time to achieve high yield, high value production. Minimizing the total time from detection to correction of a yield problem determines the return on investment for semiconductor manufacturers.

[0003] Fabrication of semiconductor devices, such as logic and memory devices, typically involves processing semiconductor wafers using a number of fabrication processes to form various features and levels of semiconductor devices. For example, lithography is a semiconductor fabrication process that involves transferring a pattern from a reticle to a photoresist disposed on a semiconductor wafer. Further examples of semiconductor fabrication processes include, but are not limited to, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), etching, deposition, and ion implantation. An array of semiconductor devices fabricated on a single semiconductor wafer can be separated into individual semiconductor devices.

[0004] Inspection processes are used at various steps during semiconductor manufacturing to detect defects on wafers to help increase the yield of the manufacturing process and therefore increase profits. Inspection has always been an important part of fabricating semiconductor devices such as integrated circuits (ICs). However, as the dimensions of semiconductor devices decrease, inspection becomes even more critical to the successful manufacture of acceptable semiconductor devices because smaller defects can cause the devices to fail. For example, as the dimensions of semiconductor devices decrease, the detection of smaller sized defects becomes necessary because even relatively small defects can cause unwanted aberrations in the semiconductor device.

[0005] However, as design rules shrink, semiconductor manufacturing processes may be operating closer to the limits of the process's performance capabilities. Furthermore, as design rules shrink, smaller defects may affect the electrical parameters of the device, which demands more sensitive inspection. As design rules shrink, the population of potentially yield-related defects detected by inspection increases dramatically, as does the population of harmful defects detected by inspection. Thus, more defects may be detected on a wafer, and modifying the process to eliminate all defects may be difficult and expensive. Determining which defects actually affect the electrical parameters and yield of the device allows process control methods to focus on those defects while generally ignoring other defects. Furthermore, at smaller design rules, process-induced failures tend to be systematic in some cases. That is, process-induced failures tend to fail in a given design pattern that is often repeated many times within the design. Eliminating spatially systematic and electrically related defects may impact yield.

[0006] Focused electron beam systems are typically used to create or test microstructures on articles such as silicon wafers used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. The electron beam is formed by electrons emitted from an emitter in an electron gun and acts as a microscopic probe as it interacts with the wafer to examine the microstructure.

[0007] An electron source, such as a thermal field emission (TFE) source or a cold field emission (CFE) source, emits electrons from an emitter tip. The electrons are focused into a large size electron beam by a gun lens (GL). The high current electron beam is collimated into a telecentric beam by the gun lens and illuminates a microaperture array (μAA). A beam-limiting aperture (BLA) following the gun lens is used to select the total beam current at which the aperture array is illuminated. The microaperture array is used to select the beam current of each single beamlet. Downstream of the microaperture array, a microlens array (MLA) focuses each beamlet onto an intermediate image plane (IIP). The microlenses (μL) may be magnetic or electrostatic lenses. The magnetic microlenses may be a number of pole pieces driven by coil excitation or permanent magnets. The electrostatic microlens may be an electrostatic Einzel lens or an electrostatic acceleration / deceleration unipotential lens.

[0008] The optical system in FIG. 1 can be divided into an upper column optical system above the intermediate image plane and a lower column optical system below the intermediate image plane. The lower column optical system may include a transfer lens (TL), an objective lens (OL), and a beam crossover (xo) between the transfer lens and the objective lens. The lower column optical system is a projection optical system. The beamlets formed by the upper column at the intermediate image plane are projected by the transfer lens and the objective lens onto the wafer (WF) at an optimal magnification where all beam blurring of each beamlet at the wafer is minimized. For wafer inspection and verification, secondary electrons (SE) and / or backscattered electrons (BSE) emitted from the wafer by the impact of each primary beamlet may be split off from the optical axis and deflected towards a detection system (Det) by a Wien filter.

[0009] The throughput of a multi-electron beam instrument for wafer inspection and verification can be limited by the number of beamlets in Figure 1. Increasing the number of beamlets can improve the throughput. However, increasing the number of beamlets is limited by the optics in the top column in Figure 1.

[0010] FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the first embodiment of the upper column in FIG. 1. The gun lens is a combined electrostatic lens and a magnetic lens. The electrostatic lens is an acceleration lens, and includes an electron source and an anode. The electron source includes an electron emission tip, a suppressor (Sup), and an extractor (Ext). The anode is combined with an acceleration tube, and an acceleration voltage (V a The beam limiting aperture is located inside the accelerating tube. The anode, the beam limiting aperture, and the accelerating tube are all connected to the same potential V a It's on top. aWhen applying V as zero, the anode, beam limiting aperture, and acceleration tube are all equivalent to being grounded. The tip is biased to a negative potential with respect to ground, and the extractor is biased less negative than the tip to generate an extraction field at the thermal field emission source. After acceleration from the extractor to the anode, the electron beam energy is (|V tip |+V a ) A magnetic lens is used to focus the electron beam into a telecentric beam onto the micro-aperture array. The magnetic lens has pole pieces and coils. The pole pieces and coils are sealed in air by a sealing tube to protect the vacuum for the electrostatic elements from contamination.

[0011] FIG. 3 shows a micro-aperture array in the structure of the embodiment of FIG. 2. FIG. 4 shows one of the conductive plates in the electrostatic micro-lens array. In FIG. 3, the illumination beam has the diameter of the beam-limiting aperture. The size of the micro-aperture array is 2a for each aperture. The aperture holes (2a) are hex-distributed with a pitch p. In FIG. 4, the thickness of the micro-lens array plate is h, which may be tens of microns. The micro-lens array includes a number of micro-lenses (μL). Each micro-lens hole has a size of 2R and is aligned with the micro-apertures in the micro-aperture array with a pitch P. The micro-lens array plate is aligned with the micro-aperture array with the same number and distribution of holes. To get as close to rotational symmetry as possible, the hexagonal distribution of holes in the aperture plate and conductive plate is configured as shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4. The size of each aperture hole is 2a and the size of the holes in each plate is 2R. a and R are in tens of microns, and R must be greater than a. The spacing (or pitch) between adjacent holes (P) may range from tens to hundreds of microns.

[0012] The beam limiting aperture in FIG. 2 is large enough (eg, hundreds of microns to a few millimeters) to select a large beam that covers all the aperture openings in FIG. 3 in the telecentric illumination shown in FIG.

[0013] In Fig. 2 and Fig. 4, each microlens in the electrostatic microlens array may be an Einzel lens or an acceleration (deceleration) monopotential lens. The three conductive plates in Fig. 4 constitute an Einzel microlens array. The central conductive plate is used to adjust the focus of the beamlets on the intermediate image plane, and the first and third conductive plates are grounded. The two conductive plates in Fig. 4 may constitute an acceleration (deceleration) monopotential lens. One plate near the aperture may be grounded, and the other plate may be applied with a positive voltage to form an acceleration lens or a negative voltage to form a deceleration lens. The gap between the conductive plates may be several tens of microns.

[0014] To increase the throughput by using more electron beamlets in a single multi-electron beam device, a computer simulation was used to analyze the optical limitations of the structure of the embodiment of FIG. 2. FIG. 5 shows the multi-electron beam throughput versus beamlet position distribution. The throughput of the multi-electron beam device is a function of the total number of beamlets, MB, given by tot It can be evaluated as follows.

number

[0015] The total number of beamlets (e.g., MB tot Given the distance α (α = 331) and the pitch P between beamlets (e.g., P = 100 μm), one can determine the size of the beam-limiting aperture for the telecentric illumination beam in Figure 2. It is larger than 2 millimeters and has a certain margin for the illumination beam to cover all the aperture holes. The large beam-limiting aperture with large emission angle α in Figure 2 creates optical problems. The uniformity of the electron emission across the large emission angle is the first challenge. The spherical aberration of the gun lens is another problem, since it is directly proportional to the cube of the large emission angle α.

[0016] A Monte Carlo simulation computational model and software were developed to investigate how much the gun spherical aberration affects the beamlet resolution in the embodiment structure in FIG. 2. To emphasize the effect of the gun on the resolution with telecentric illumination, each microlens of the microlens array is assumed to be ideal without aberrations. FIG. 6 shows the results of the computer simulation, giving the beamlet spot size at the intermediate image plane versus the position of the beamlet in the x-axis. The simulation includes a total of 331 beamlets with a pitch of 100 microns.

[0017] The simulation results in Fig. 6 show that the total number of beamlets (MB tot ), suggesting that the beamlet resolution drops off sharply with increasing throughput. Thus, the beamlet resolution drops off at higher throughputs. Due to the requirement of homogeneity of the beamlet resolution across (x,y) space, Fig. 6 shows that only the beamlets inside the third ring in Fig. 5, or a total of 37 beamlets (i.e., M x = 7, and MB tot It may be proposed to use at most a total of 91 beamlets (i.e., M x = 11, and MB tot=91), the resolution of the outer ring beamlets is reduced by more than 20%, which is unacceptable for e-beam wafer inspection and verification.

[0018] Single electron beams are used for wafer inspection and verification, which is an approach to inspect finished or unfinished integrated circuit components at the nanometer critical dimension (CD) level. The throughput of single electron beam devices is quite low, so multiple electron beam systems have been developed to increase the throughput. The throughput of a multiple electron beam system can be based on the number of sub-beams or the number of total electron beamlets. The higher the number of beamlets, the higher the throughput. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0019] [Patent Document 1] US Patent Application Publication No. 2015 / 0155133 [Patent Document 2] US Patent Application Publication No. 2020 / 0258714 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0020] However, increasing the number of radial beamlets may be limited by the electron optical column, where multiple electron beamlets are split from one electron source. Increasing the number of beamlets means increasing the emission angle of the electron source, which causes an increase in the spherical aberration of the gun lens and a decrease in the beamlet resolution of the outer ring, since the spherical aberration of the gun lens is proportional to the cube of the emission angle. Therefore, an improved electron beam system is needed. [Means for solving the problem]

[0021] In a first embodiment, a system is provided. The system includes an electron beam source generating an electron beam. The electron beam source includes a tip, a suppression electrode, and an extraction electrode. An acceleration tube is disposed in a path of the electron beam. A beam-limiting aperture is disposed in the acceleration tube. An anode is disposed in the path of the electron beam between the electron beam source and the acceleration tube. A focusing lens is disposed in the path of the electron beam downstream from the beam-limiting aperture. A microaperture array is disposed in the path of the electron beam downstream from the acceleration tube. The microaperture array is configured to generate a plurality of beamlets from the electron beam.

[0022] The focusing lens can be an electrostatic focusing lens. In one example, the focusing lens is positioned in the path of the electron beam on the opposite side of the accelerating tube from the anode, and the micro-aperture array is positioned in the path of the electron beam on the opposite side of the accelerating tube from the focusing lens.

[0023] The focusing lens can be a magnetic focusing lens. In one example, the focusing lens is disposed around the accelerating tube and on an opposite side of the accelerating tube from the anode. The micro-aperture array can be disposed on the accelerating tube. The accelerating tube can be grounded.

[0024] The tip may be a thermal field emitter.

[0025] The system may further include a microlens array that receives the beamlets from the microaperture array.

[0026] The system may further include a transfer lens and an objective lens in the path of the beamlets downstream of the microaperture array.

[0027] The microaperture array can contain more than 100 microapertures.

[0028] In a second embodiment, a method is provided. The method includes the steps of directing an electron beam from an electron beam source to an acceleration tube. The electron beam is directed through a beam-limiting aperture in the acceleration tube. The electron beam is focused after the electron beam enters the acceleration tube. The electron beam is directed through a micro-aperture array disposed in a path of the electron beam downstream from the acceleration tube, thereby forming a plurality of beamlets from the electron beam.

[0029] The accelerating tube can be grounded, have an accelerating voltage greater than 0V, or have an accelerating voltage less than 0V.

[0030] The beam current between the beam-limiting aperture and the micro-aperture array may be at least 10 μA.

[0031] The electron beam can be focused from a diverging illumination beam into a telecentric illumination beam.

[0032] More than 100 beamlets can be generated using a microaperture array.

[0033] For a fuller understanding of the nature and objects of the present disclosure, reference should be made to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which: [Brief description of the drawings]

[0034] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional design of a multi-electron beam system. [Diagram 2] FIG. 2 is a diagram of an embodiment of an upper column in the multi-electron beam system of FIG. 1. [Diagram 3] FIG. 3 is a diagram of an embodiment of the micro-aperture array of FIG. 2. [Figure 4] FIG. 1 is a diagram of a conductive plate used as an electrostatic microlens array. [Diagram 5]FIG. 13 illustrates multiple electron beam throughput versus beamlet position distribution. [Figure 6] FIG. 3 shows simulation results of beamlet spot size versus beamlet position in the x-axis for telecentric illumination of the embodiment of FIG. 2. [Figure 7] FIG. 1 is a diagram of a first embodiment of an electron beam system according to the present disclosure. [Figure 8] FIG. 8 is a comparison of beamlet resolution versus beamlet position showing improved results over the embodiment of FIG. 7. [Figure 9] Illustrates direct ray tracing of (a) an inner illuminating electron beam and (b) an outer illuminating electron beam. [Figure 10] FIG. 1 illustrates the selection of single beam current (SBC) for each electron beamlet. [Figure 11] FIG. 2 is a diagram of a second embodiment of an electron beam system according to the present disclosure. [Figure 12] 1 is a flow chart of a method according to the present disclosure. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0035] Although the claimed subject matter is described in terms of certain embodiments, other embodiments, including embodiments that do not provide all of the benefits and features described herein, are within the scope of this disclosure. Various structural, logical, process step, and electronic changes may be made without departing from the scope of the disclosure. Accordingly, the scope of the disclosure is defined solely by reference to the appended claims.

[0036] In the embodiments disclosed herein, a diverging illumination beam with a smaller emission angle is focused by a collimating lens into a telecentric illumination beam. This not only reduces the spherical aberration of the gun lens, but also removes the off-axis blurs and distortions of the microlens array, allowing for a 5x or greater increase in throughput. The spherical aberration from the gun lens can cause a degradation of the beamlet resolution when increasing throughput (or increasing the number of total beamlets) because each microlens in the microlens array is assumed to be ideal with no aberrations. The spherical aberration from the gun lens is proportional to the cube of the beam limiting aperture size (or emission angle α).

[0037] To reduce the spherical aberration from the gun lens, a high brightness (or angular intensity) electron source is used and the emission angle α is reduced. For example, reducing the emission angle α by a factor of 2 and simultaneously increasing the angular intensity by a factor of 4 at the same beam current reduces the spherical aberration by a factor of 8. In this case, the emission angle can be about 150 mrad to 200 mrad and the angular intensity can be about 0.8 mA / sr to 1.2 mA / sr. The reduction in spherical aberration by a factor of 8 in FIG. 6 is achieved for a total of 331 beamlets (i.e., M x = 21, and MB tot =331), and numbers of beamlets ranging from 300 to 500 may be used, increasing throughput by 3.6 to 9 times (e.g., 5 times or more).

[0038] Figure 8 shows the total of 61 beamlets (M x = 9, and MB tot The resolution in the fourth ring using direct telecentric illumination with a total of 331 beamlets (M = 61) in Fig. 7 was x = 21, and MB totWe demonstrate that the resolution approaches that of the 10th ring with a collimated illumination technique with a resolution of 331 nm (=331 nm). This means that the throughput of the latter is 5 times higher than that of the former. The throughput in Figure 2 may not be acceptable for modern applications in semiconductor manufacturing.

[0039] In the electron beam system 100 of Figure 7, an electron beam source 101 generates an electron beam 102. The electron beam 102 is a collimated telecentric beam. The electron beam source 101 may include a tip 103, a suppression electrode 104, and an extraction electrode 105. The tip 103 may be a thermal field emitter or another type of electron beam source.

[0040] The size (radius) of the tip of the electron beam source 101 may be approximately 1 μm for high angular intensity (e.g., 1 mA / sr). The tip may be biased around −30 kV for an effective beam energy of 30 keV. The acceleration tube 106 may be grounded for a 30 keV irradiation beam or may be positively biased about 10 kV to 30 kV for the accelerated irradiation beam to reduce Coulomb interactions. The bore size of the extractor may be about 500 μm to 1000 μm. The distance between the extractor and the acceleration tube 106 may be greater than 10 mm.

[0041] An accelerating tube 106 is disposed in the path of the electron beam 102. The accelerating tube 106 is downstream from the electron beam source 101. A beam-limiting aperture 107 may be positioned within the accelerating tube 106. For example, the beam-limiting aperture 107 may be positioned within the accelerating tube 106 near an opening of the accelerating tube 106 proximate the electron beam source 101. A virtual gun lens 113 is shown.

[0042] Proximate to the electron beam source 101 and the acceleration tube 106 is a sealing tube 114. Coils 115 and pole pieces 116 are located outside or around the sealing tube 114.

[0043] The distance between the beam-limiting aperture 107 and the micro-aperture array 110 (or the length of the accelerating tube 106) may be, for example, approximately 100 mm to 150 mm to reduce the source emission angle (gun lens spherical aberration). If this distance is too short, the emission angle may be large even with the use of a collimating lens. The mechanical components (e.g., valves and pumping systems) can be configured to provide a reasonable distance from the beam-limiting aperture 107 and the micro-aperture array 110.

[0044] With the aid of the collimating lens, the size of the beam limiting aperture 107 can be reduced to a size of about 750 μm to 1000 μm for an illumination beam current of about 10 μA to 25 μA controlled by the gun magnetic lens excitation.

[0045] If the accelerating tube is always grounded, the beam-limiting aperture 107 may be positioned separately in front of the accelerating tube 106 and grounded. However, if the accelerating tube 106 is used for acceleration, the beam-limiting aperture 107 and the accelerating tube 106 form an electrostatic lens. In an embodiment, the beam-limiting aperture 107 in FIG. 7 and the upper end of the accelerating tube 106 can be placed in a floating anode.

[0046] The anode 108 can be disposed in the path of the electron beam 102 between the electron beam source 101 and the accelerating tube 106. The anode 108 can be disposed on the accelerating tube 106. For example, the anode 108 can be disposed on the accelerating tube 106 proximate to the electron beam source 101 or at an opening thereof.

[0047] The focusing lens 109 is disposed in the path of the electron beam 102 downstream from the beam-limiting aperture 107. The focusing lens 109 can be an electrostatic focusing lens or a magnetic focusing lens. If the focusing lens 109 is a magnetic focusing lens, the focusing lens 109 can be disposed around the accelerating tube 106 on the opposite side from the anode 108, as shown in Figure 11. In the example of Figure 11, a micro-aperture array 110 can be disposed on the accelerating tube 106, and the accelerating tube 106 can be grounded.

[0048] 7, focusing lens 109, if it is an electrostatic focusing lens, can be on the opposite side of accelerating tube 106 from anode 108. This allows anode 108 to be positioned on or at the opening of accelerating tube 106 adjacent to electron beam source 101, and focusing lens 109 to be positioned adjacent to the opening on the opposite side of accelerating tube 106.

[0049] A microaperture array 110 is disposed in the path of the electron beam 102 downstream from the accelerating tube 106. The microaperture array 110 is configured to generate beamlets 111 from the electron beam 102. There may be one microaperture for each beamlet. For example, the microaperture array 110 may include more than 100 microapertures, which generate more than 100 beamlets 111. In an example with a spacing of about 100 μm between the beamlets 111, a microaperture of about 30 μm and a microlens bore of about 50 μm may generate 100 to 500 beams. The microaperture array 110 may be disposed in the path of the electron beam 102 on the opposite side of the focusing lens 109 from the accelerating tube 106. The microaperture array 110 may be positioned at a non-zero distance from the accelerating tube 106.

[0050] A microlens array 112 is positioned to receive the beamlets 111 from the microaperture array 110. The images of the microlens array 112 (i.e., the spot size of the beamlets) can be objects of the downstream projection optics. A multi-electron probe can be formed at the wafer downstream of the microlens array 112.

[0051] The multi-electron probe current reaching the wafer is a single beam current, selected by the collimating lens and micro-aperture array 110. The single beam current is split from the raw beam current during irradiation, selected by the magnetic gun lens excitation and beam limiting aperture 107.

[0052] A transfer lens 117, an objective lens 118, and a wafer 119 can be positioned in the path of the beamlets 111 downstream of the microaperture array 110. A crossover 120 can be placed between the transfer lens 117 and the objective lens 118. Beam scanning and / or each beamlet 111 can be used to form a separate image, such as using a detector similar to FIG.

[0053] In FIG. 7, the small emission angle α' can eliminate the gun lens spherical aberration. A collimating lens (CL) is placed in front of the micro-aperture array 110 to focus the divergent electron beam 102 from the gun. The collimating lens can be an electrostatic lens, including an accelerating tube 106 with a voltage Va, a focusing electrode 109 with a collimating voltage VC, and an electrode of the micro-aperture array 110 that is grounded. The collimating lens can be an asymmetric Einzel lens. At an optimal collimating voltage VC, the divergent electron beam 102 is collimated in a telecentric beam and illuminates the micro-aperture array 110 and the micro-lens array 112. Off-axis aberrations and distortions are eliminated.

[0054] The design of FIG. 2 was studied, and the computer simulations used to generate the results of FIG. 6 were used to evaluate resolution and throughput for the electron beam system 100 of FIG. 7. FIG. 8 shows a comparison of optical performance using direct telecentric illumination in FIG. 2 and divergent-collimated illumination in FIG. 7. FIG. 8 shows that throughput improvements can be achieved by using a smaller emission angle α′ to reduce the spherical aberration of the gun lens, and by collimating the divergent beam to telecentrically illuminate the microaperture array 110 and microlens array 112 to eliminate off-axis blur and distortion. The extent of the impact of the smaller emission angle α′ is surprising.

[0055] The emission angle α′ in FIG. 7 and the size of the beam limiting aperture 107 can be selected and fixed for sufficient illumination beam current. For a given divergence beam angle, as seen in FIG. 9 by a computer simulation of ray tracing from the electron beam source 101 to the microlens array 112, the optimal collimating lens voltage V that can perfectly collimate the diverging beam into a telecentric illumination beam, eliminating off-axis blurring and distortion caused by the microlens array 112, is c-opt may exist.

[0056] In Figures 7 and 8, a beam limiting aperture of 800 μm was used for an illumination beam current of about 10 μA to 25 μA. At an angular intensity of 1.0 mA / sr, the emission angle is about 56 mrad to 90 mrad. If the illumination beam is perfectly telecentric, the off-axis blur can be completely eliminated.

[0057] In FIG. 9, the tip-emitted electron trajectory at the maximum emission angle α' is divided into two groups of electron beams for convenience of explanation. The group of inner illumination beams is assumed to be useful and enters the micro-aperture array 110 and is split into beamlets 111. These beamlets 111 are separately focused by the micro-lens array 112 and imaged at the intermediate image plane. The group of outer illumination beams is assumed to be margin beams, which are blocked by the micro-aperture array 110. Both the inner and outer illumination beams are all focused by a collimating lens and illuminate the micro-aperture array 110 telecentrically.

[0058] Compared with the direct telecentric illumination method in FIG. 2, the diverging beam with collimated illumination method in FIG. 7 allows the selection of a single beam current (SBC) over a wide range, which is another advantage of the electron beam system 100. This advantage is illustrated in FIG. 10. In FIG. 10, each beamlet current may be varied for a particular application by changing the coil current of the magnetic gun lens. That is, the beamlet current may be influenced by changing the beam divergence angle rather than the emission angle. For example, the use of magnetic lens excitations A, B and C (C>B>A) reduces the raw beam current (i.e., I raw , beam current below the fixed beam limiting aperture 107) reaches 10, 15, and 20 microamperes. And the optimal collimation voltage V Ca , V Cb , V Cc (V Cc <V Cb <V Ca ) selects single beam currents of 0.25 nA, 1.0 nA, and 5.0 nA in the optical columns of Figure 10(a), (b), and (c), respectively. For example, in Figure 10(c), with a total of 331 beamlets, the total beamlet current can be 5.0 x 331 = 1655 (nA), resulting in a utilization of 8.3% of the raw beam current of 20 μA.

[0059] The collimating lens in the embodiment of FIG. 7 can function in three lens focusing modes. One is to ground the accelerating tube or to focus the accelerating voltage V a The second is the Einzel lens mode when the accelerating tube is set to V = 0 volts. a <0 volts. a 0 volts. For any collimating lens focusing mode to best illuminate the micro-aperture array 110 and micro-lens array 112 telecentrically and eliminate off-axis blur and distortion, the collimating lens voltage V C-opt can be selected.

[0060] Since the beam current between the beam-limiting aperture 107 and the micro-aperture array 110 can be quite high (e.g., several microamperes to tens of microamperes), the voltage V a An accelerating tube 106 with >>0 volts can be used to reduce the effects of Coulomb interactions between electrons on the beamlet resolution.

[0061] The collimating lens can be improved when it is positioned close to the micro-aperture array 110. For example, the gap between the collimating lens and the micro-aperture array 110 in FIG. 7 may be approximately 10 mm. The farther the collimating lens is placed from the micro-aperture array 110, the larger the emission angle α′ may be required to focus the beam to completely cover the micro-aperture array 110 with a certain margin. This may result in higher spherical aberration of the gun lens and reduced beamlet resolution at the intermediate image plane. In one example, the distance between the beam-limiting aperture and the aperture array may be approximately 100 mm to 150 mm to sufficiently reduce the emission angle α′.

[0062] FIG. 11 shows an electron beam system 200 in which a magnetic collimating lens is used to replace the electrostatic collimating lens from FIG. 7. The acceleration tube 106 may be grounded and used as a sealing tube for the magnetic collimating lens. The pole pieces 201 and coils 202 of the magnetic collimating lens may be sealed in air to protect the vacuum from contamination. The magnetic collimating lens may have lower lens aberrations than the electrostatic collimating lens, which improves the beamlet resolution at the intermediate image plane. The transfer lens 117, objective lens 118, wafer 119, and crossover 120 of FIG. 7 may be used in the electron beam system 200 of FIG. 11, but are not shown in FIG. 11 for simplicity.

[0063] FIG. 12 is a flow chart of method 300. Method 300 can be applied using electron beam system 100 or electron beam system 200. In 301, an electron beam is guided from an electron beam source to an accelerating tube. The accelerating tube can be grounded, have an accelerating voltage greater than 0V, or have an accelerating voltage less than 0V. In 302, the electron beam is guided through a beam-limiting aperture in the accelerating tube. In 303, the electron beam is also focused after entering the accelerating tube. The electron beam can be focused from a diverging illumination beam to a telecentric illumination beam. The beam current between the beam-limiting aperture and the micro-aperture array can be at least 10 μA.

[0064] At 304, the electron beam is directed through a microaperture array disposed in the path of the electron beam downstream of the acceleration tube, thereby forming a plurality of beamlets from the electron beam. The microaperture array can be used to generate over 100 beamlets.

[0065] These beamlets are split off from a single electron beam source. The throughput of a multi-electron beam system can be characterized by the number of beamlets: more beamlets generally equates to a greater throughput.

[0066] To avoid spherical aberration while increasing the number of beamlets, a collimating lens focuses the diverging illumination beam into a telecentric illumination beam, which eliminates the effect of the spherical blur of the gun lens on the beamlet resolution, as well as the off-axis blur and distortion of the microlens array. The raw beam current during illumination and the single beam current can be selected over a range. This range can include an illumination raw beam current of about 10 μA to 30 μA and a single beam current of about 0.2 nA to 6 nA for a total of 300 to 400 beamlets.

[0067] The diverging beam from the beam-limiting aperture is focused into a telecentric beam by a collimating lens.

[0068] Theoretically, + / - 0.5 mrad is tolerated for the resulting telecentric beam, but the optimum collimating lens voltages can be determined by examining the image in an IIP. Perfect telecentric illumination eliminates artifacts, blurring, and distortion.

[0069] The collimating lens used in method 300 can be an electrostatic lens in Einzel lens mode, an electrostatic lens in acceleration / deceleration mode, or a magnetic lens sealed in air.

[0070] Although the present disclosure has been described in one or more specific embodiments, it will be understood that other embodiments of the present disclosure may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure, and therefore the present disclosure is deemed to be limited only by the appended claims and their reasonable interpretation.

Claims

1. an electron beam source for generating an electron beam, the electron beam source including a tip, a suppression electrode, and an extraction electrode; an acceleration tube disposed in a path of the electron beam, the acceleration tube having an inlet and an outlet opposite the inlet, the inlet receiving the electron beam from the electron beam source; a beam-limiting aperture disposed within the acceleration tube, the beam-limiting aperture being proximate the entrance proximate the electron beam source; an anode disposed in the path of the electron beam between the electron beam source and the acceleration tube; a focusing lens disposed in the path of the electron beam downstream from the beam-limiting aperture; a microaperture array disposed in the path of the electron beam downstream from the acceleration tube and the focusing lens, the microaperture array configured to generate a plurality of beamlets from the electron beam; A system comprising:

2. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the focusing lens is an electrostatic focusing lens.

3. 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the focusing lens is disposed in the path of the electron beam on an opposite side of the accelerating tube from the anode.

4. 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the micro-aperture array is disposed in the path of the electron beam on an opposite side of the focusing lens from the acceleration tube.

5. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the focusing lens is a magnetic focusing lens.

6. 6. The system of claim 5, wherein the focusing lens is disposed around the accelerating tube.

7. 7. The system of claim 6, wherein the focusing lens is disposed on an opposite side of the accelerating tube from the anode.

8. 7. The system of claim 6, wherein the micro-aperture array is disposed on the accelerating tube.

9. 7. The system of claim 6, wherein the accelerating structure is grounded.

10. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the tip is a thermal field emitter.

11. 10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a microlens array that receives beamlets from the microaperture array.

12. 10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a transfer lens and an objective lens in a path of the beamlet downstream of the microaperture array, the transfer lens providing a crossover in the beamlet between the transfer lens and the objective lens.

13. 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the microaperture array comprises more than 100 microapertures.

14. directing an electron beam from an electron beam source to an entrance of an acceleration tube; directing the electron beam through a beam-limiting aperture in the acceleration tube, the beam-limiting aperture proximate the entrance proximate the electron beam source; focusing the electron beam after it enters the acceleration tube; directing the electron beam through a micro-aperture array disposed in a path of the electron beam downstream of the acceleration tube and a focusing lens, thereby forming a plurality of beamlets from the electron beam; The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

15. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the accelerating structure is grounded.

16. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the accelerating tube has an accelerating voltage greater than 0V.

17. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the accelerating tube has an accelerating voltage less than 0V.

18. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the beam current between the beam-limiting aperture and the micro-aperture array is at least 10 μA.

19. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the electron beam is focused from a diverging illumination beam into a telecentric illumination beam.

20. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein more than 100 beamlets are generated using the microaperture array.

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