Disclosed are systems and methods for achieving sub-diffraction limit resolutions for fabrication of integrated circuits. In one embodiment, a photolithography system is disclosed. The system includes a light source, configured to emit laser beams; a reflector configured to receive the laser beams and focus the laser beams on a condensing lens; a scattering medium, configured to receive the laser beams and generate scattered laser beams; and a wave-front shaping module, configured to receive the scattered laser beams and generate a focused laser beam on a silicon wafer.

A system and method for patterning of a substrate at sub-micron length scales using interference lithography that includes a substrate; a chuck that promotes substrate motion; at least two EM beams; a beam phase controller, wherein the phase controller modifies phases of the EM beams with respect to each other creating an interference pattern; a displacement sensor that measures the substrate displacement; and a feedback control mechanism configured to monitor and synchronize the substrate motion with the interference pattern using the beam phase controller and the displacement sensor.

The embodiments of the present disclosure propose a negative refraction imaging lithographic method and equipment. The lithographic method includes: coating photoresist on a device substrate; fabricating a negative refraction imaging structure, wherein the negative refraction imaging structure exhibits optical negative refraction in response to beam emitted by exposure source; pressing a mask to be close to the negative refraction imaging structure; disposing the mask and the negative refraction imaging structure above the device substrate at a projection distance; and light emitted by the exposure source passes through the mask, the negative refraction imaging structure, the projection gap and is sequentially projected onto the photoresist for exposure.

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.

A super-resolution system for nano-patterning is disclosed, comprising an exposure head that enables a super-resolution patterning exposures. The super-resolution exposures are carried out using electromagnetic radiation and plasmonic structures, and in some embodiments, plasmonic structures having specially designed super-resolution apertures, of which the “bow-tie” and “C-aperture” are examples. These apertures create small but bright images in the near-field transmission pattern. A writing head comprising one or more of these apertures is held in close proximity to a medium for patterning. In some embodiments, a data processing system is provided to re-interpret the data to be patterned into a set of modulation signals used to drive the multiple individual channels and multiple exposures, and a detection means is provided to verify the data as written.

In a lithographic process in which a series of substrates are processed in different contexts, object data (such as performance data representing overlay measured on a set of substrates that have been processed previously) is received. Context data represents one or more parameters of the lithographic process that vary between substrates within the set. By principal component analysis or other statistical analysis of the performance data, the set of substrates are partitioned into two or more subsets. The first partitioning of the substrates and the context data are used to identify one or more relevant context parameters, being parameters of the lithographic process that are observed to correlate most strongly with the first partitioning. The lithographic apparatus is controlled for new substrates by reference to the identified relevant context parameters. Embodiments with feedback control and feedforward control are described.

Extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography ruling engine specifically configured to print one-dimensional lines on a target workpiece includes source of EUV radiation; a pattern-source defining 1D pattern; an illumination unit (IU) configured to irradiate the pattern-source; and projection optics (PO) configured to optically image, with a reduction factor N>1, the 1D pattern on image surface that is optically-conjugate to the 1D pattern. Irradiation of the pattern-source can be on-axis or off-axis. While 1D pattern has first spatial frequency, its optical image has second spatial frequency that is at least twice the first spatial frequency. The pattern-source can be flat or curved. The IU may include a relay reflector. A PO's reflector may include multiple spatially-distinct reflecting elements aggregately forming such reflector. The engine is configured to not allow formation of optical image of any 2D pattern that has spatial resolution substantially equal to a pitch of the 1D pattern of the pattern-source.

A super-resolution system for nano-patterning is disclosed, comprising an exposure head that enables a super-resolution patterning exposures. The super-resolution exposures are carried out using electromagnetic radiation and plasmonic structures, and in some embodiments, plasmonic structures having specially designed super-resolution apertures, of which the bow-tie and C-aperture are examples. These apertures create small but bright images in the near-field transmission pattern. A writing head comprising one or more of these apertures is held in close proximity to a medium for patterning. In some embodiments, a data processing system is provided to re-interpret the data to be patterned into a set of modulation signals used to drive the multiple individual channels and multiple exposures, and a detection means is provided to verify the data as written.

A super-resolution system for nano-patterning is disclosed, comprising an exposure head that enables a super-resolution patterning exposures. The super-resolution exposures are carried out using electromagnetic radiation and plasmonic structures, and in some embodiments, plasmonic structures having specially designed super-resolution apertures, of which the bow-tie and C-aperture are examples. These apertures create small but bright images in the near-field transmission pattern. A writing head comprising one or more of these apertures is held in close proximity to a medium for patterning. In some embodiments, a data processing system is provided to re-interpret the data to be patterned into a set of modulation signals used to drive the multiple individual channels and multiple exposures, and a detection means is provided to verify the data as written.

A system and method for patterning of a substrate at sub-micron length scales using interference lithography that includes a substrate; a chuck that promotes substrate motion; at least two EM beams; a beam phase controller, wherein the phase controller modifies phases of the EM beams with respect to each other creating an interference pattern; a displacement sensor that measures the substrate displacement; and a feedback control mechanism configured to monitor and synchronize the substrate motion with the interference pattern using the beam phase controller and the displacement sensor.