A system that contains a semi-ellipsoidal SLM holder supporting a plurality of flat rectangular SLMs, which are placed onto the semi-ellipsoidal surface of the holder in the most surface-covering way. The system contains a coherent light source placed in the first focal point of the ellipsoid. The second focal point of the ellipsoid defines the area in which an image-receiving object is to be placed. All the SLMs are illuminated by a diverging light beam emitted from the coherent light source. In each SLM, the light is subjected to phase-amplitude modulation and is converted into an image-carrying beam, which convergently fells onto the object on which the target image is to be produced. Thus, a pattern is formed on the object by a maskless method in which a plurality of SLMs are combined into a common image-forming holographic unit.

Embodiments described herein provide a method of large area lithography. One embodiment of the method includes projecting at least one incident beam to a mask in a propagation direction of the at least one incident beam. The mask having at least one period of a dispersive element that diffracts the incident beam into order mode beams having one or more diffraction orders with a highest order N greater than 1. The one or more diffraction orders provide an intensity pattern in a medium between the mask and a substrate having a photoresist layer disposed thereon. The intensity pattern includes a plurality of intensity peaks defined by sub-periodic patterns of the at least one period. The intensity peaks write a plurality of portions in the photoresist layer such that a number of the portions in the photoresist layer corresponding to the at least one period is greater than N.

The invention provides a light generating method and system, the method including: generating first light, the first light being capable of forming a first area, a second area, and a third area, and intensity of the first light in the first area being higher than that in the second area and the third area, respectively; generating second light, the second light being capable of simultaneously irradiating the first area and the second area; generating third light, the third light being capable of simultaneously irradiating the first area and the third area; and controlling intensity of the second light and the third light, respectively. The light generating method and system provided by the invention can not only generate light having a super-resolution that may approach infinitesimal in theory but also employ light output by a laser as the only original light source, featuring extremely low costs and freedom from the diffraction limit of the light source, showing a great prospect of applications in the field of lithography.

A device and method for producing light-exposed structures on a workpiece having a light-sensitive surface. An optical unit includes a light source and a diffraction grating for producing a strip-shaped illumination pattern having strips extending in a longitudinal direction and having a pattern width extending transversely. A device moves the surface of the workpiece and optical unit relative to each other according to a path sequence, which includes movement longitudinal paths to produce a first and second light-exposed structure having strips, which is oriented parallel to each other on the workpiece surface. The movement paths are mutually spaced apart by less than the pattern width and the light-exposed structures overlap in such a way that strips of the light-exposed structures lie on each other. To obtain good light exposure of the surface by the illumination pattern, the diffraction grating is set oblique to the surface of the workpiece that is light-exposed by the illumination pattern.

A method comprises disposing a photosensitive film layer on a surface of a substrate layer and placing a variable neutral density (ND) filter such that a surface of the variable ND filter faces an exposure region of the photosensitive film layer. The variable ND filter is a thin film that has an attenuation profile that modulates transmittance of light passing through the variable ND filter to the exposure region to cancel out an uneven power distribution in an intermediate interference exposure pattern at the exposure region of the photosensitive film layer. The method further comprises arranging one or more laser generators such that at least two generated beams of light from the one or more laser generators intersect with each other and form the intermediate interference exposure pattern that is modulated by the variable ND filter to form a target interference exposure pattern at the exposure region.

The present disclosure discloses a real-time micro/nano optical field generation and manipulation system and method. The system comprises a light source, a spatial filtering unit, an optical 4F system and a light wave manipulation unit, and the optical 4F system comprises a first lens (set) and a second lens (set) sequentially arranged along a light path. The present disclosure achieves real-time modulation on an incident wavefront through a phase element or a phase element assemble. By dynamically manipulating an incident light sub-wavefront, or the light wave modulation optical element, or different areas of the optical element, or different parts of the optical field in an imaging plane and/or the like by the spatial filtering unit, real time light fields with different parameters are generated in the image plane of the system. By spatial filtering/spatial time division filtering/spatio-temporal multiplexing filtering and/or the change of the phase elements, flexible manipulation on patterns, pattern distribution areas and structural parameters such as the patterns' frequency, their orientations, duty ratios, phases or phase shifts and the like are realized. The system can be flexibly integrated into various lithography or microscopy systems for real-time micro/nano structure fabrication and dynamical or 3D detection with a real time manipulated structural illumination.

Embodiments described herein provide a method of large area lithography to decrease widths of portions written into photoresists. One embodiment of the method includes projecting an initial light beam of a plurality of light beams at a minimum wavelength to a mask in a propagation direction of the plurality of light beams. The mask has a plurality of dispersive elements. A wavelength of each light beam of the plurality of light beams is increased until a final light beam of the plurality of light beams is projected at a maximum wavelength. The plurality of dispersive elements of the mask diffract the plurality of light beams into order mode beams to produce an intensity pattern in a medium between the mask and a substrate having a photoresist layer disposed thereon. The intensity pattern having a plurality of intensity peaks writes a plurality of portions in the photoresist layer.

A light irradiation method includes splitting light from a coherent light source, which outputs the light at a wavelength equal to or less than 300 nm, into a plurality of branch beams. A wavefront of the light is shaped before splitting the light. The light irradiation method also includes causing the branch beams to intersect at an interference angle equal to or less than 20 to generate interfered light, and irradiating a substrate with the interfered light while continuously conveying the substrate relative to the interfered light.

Direct pixel-by-pixel phase engineering in a SLM is an effective method for the holographic fabrication of graded photonic super-quasi-crystals with desired disorder and graded photonic super-crystals with rectangular unit-cells. Multiple levels of filling fractions of dielectric in the crystal have been created in the graded regions. Fabrication of these graded photonic super-crystals and super-quasi-crystals with small feature size is possible, using a laser projection system consisting of integrated spatial light modulator and reflective optical element.

A metrology target having a periodic or quasi-periodic structure, which is characterized by a plurality of parameters. At least one of these parameters varies locally monotonically, wherein the maximum size of this variation over a distance of 5 m is less than 10% of the size of the at least one parameter. In addition, the metrology target has at least one used structure and at least one auxiliary structure, wherein the auxiliary structure transitions progressively into the used structure with regard to the locally monotonically varying parameter. Also disclosed are an associated method and associated device for characterizing structured elements configured as wafers, masks or CGHs.