Disclosed herein is a method for increasing signal-to-noise (SNR) in optical imaging of defects on unpatterned wafers. The method includes: (i) irradiating a region of an unpatterned wafer with a substantially polarized, incident light beam, and (ii) employing relay optics to collect and guide, radiation scattered off the region, onto a segmented polarizer comprising at least four polarizer segments characterized by respective dimensions and polarization directions. The respective dimensions and polarization direction of each of the at least four polarizer segments are such that an overall power of background noise radiation, generated in the scattering of the incident light beam from the region and passed through all of the at least four polarizer segments, is decreased as compared to utilizing a linear polarizer.

An EUV microscope apparatus utilizing a source of EUV light. The light is sent to a collector which creates a first focused EUV beam. A monochromator module receives the first focused EUV beam and produces a second focused EUV beam that is passed to an illumination module. The output of the illumination module is reflected off a mask. The reflected beam from the mask is sent to a zone-plate and a detector to produce an image.

An EUV mask inspection device includes: an EUV light source for outputting EUV light with a wavelength ranging from 5 nm to 15 nm; a multilayer reflection zone plate having an EUV reflection multilayer film, which is a planar substrate, and a zone plate pattern; and an EUV lighting unit for creating EUV illumination light by obtaining 1.sup.st diffraction light reflected after radiating EUV light output from the EUV light source to the multilayer reflection zone plate. The EUV mask inspection device further includes: an aperture for providing monochromatic light or reducing a light radiation area by reducing a linewidth of optical wavelength radiated from the EUV lighting unit; a transmissive zone plate for forming expanded light by collecting reflected or scattered light after radiating light passing through the aperture to the EUV mask; and an image sensor for measuring intensity of light through EUV mask measured light.

A method is provided. The method includes forming a shrink material layer over a substrate including a photoresist pattern. The method also includes exposing the substrate with the shrink material layer to an activating radiation via a grey-tone mask that provides a predetermined light transmittance profile for the activating radiation. The method also includes removing at least a portion of the shrink material layer.

Apparatus and methods for measuring surface topography are described. The analysis apparatus and methods detect light reflected from the reflective backside of a cantilever assembly including a tip, calculate a background level (BGL) value obtained from an optical scan of a reference sample using a power spectral density (PSD) value obtained from a topographical scan of a reference sample to generate a correlational coefficient between the BGL and the PSD values. The correlational coefficient between the BGL and PSD values is used to measure the BGL value of additional EUV mask blanks by a topographical scan of the EUV mask blanks using the same tip mounted to the cantilever.

A method for inspecting a reticle including a reflective layer on a reticle substrate is provided. The method may include loading the reticle on a stage, cooling the reticle substrate to a temperature lower than a room temperature, irradiating a laser beam to the reflective layer on the reticle substrate, receiving the laser beam using a photodetector to obtain an image of the reflective layer, and detect a particle defect on the reflective layer or a void defect in the reflective layer based on the image of the reflective layer.

Apparatus, methods and are disclosed for measuring refractive index of an absorber material used in EUV phase shift masks. The method and apparatus utilize a reference measurement and as series of reflectance measurements at a range of EUV wavelengths and thickness values for the absorber material to determine the refractive index of the absorber material.

An inspection system (1600), a lithography apparatus, and an inspection method are provided. The inspection system (1600) includes an illumination system (1602), a detection system (1606), and processing circuitry (1622). The illumination system generates a first illumination beam (1610) at a first wavelength and a second illumination beam (1618) at a second wavelength. The first wavelength is different from the second wavelength. The illumination system irradiates an object (1612) simultaneously with the first illumination beam and the second illumination beam. The detection system receives radiation (1620) scattered by a particle (1624) present at a surface (1626) of the object at the first wavelength. The detection system generates a detection signal. The processing circuitry determines a characteristic of the particle based on the detection signal.

An apparatus and method of measuring pattern uniformity, and a method of manufacturing a mask by using the measurement method are provided. The measurement apparatus includes a light source configured to generate and output light, a stage configured to support a measurement target, an optical system configured to transfer the light, output from the light source, to the measurement target supported on the stage, and a first detector configured to detect light reflected and diffracted by the measurement target, or diffracted by passing through the measurement target, wherein the first detector is configured to detect a pupil image of a pupil plane and to measure pattern uniformity of an array area of the measurement target on the basis of intensity of at least one of zero-order light and 1.sup.st-order light of the pupil image.

A diagnostic apparatus monitors a lithographic manufacturing system. First measurement data representing local deviations of some characteristic across a substrate is obtained using sensors within a lithographic apparatus, and/or a separate metrology tool. Other inspection tools perform substrate backside inspection to produce second measurement data. A high-resolution backside defect image is processed into a form in which it can be compared with lower resolution information from the first measurement data. Cross-correlation is performed to identify which of the observed defects are correlated spatially with the deviations represented in the first measurement data. A correlation map is used to identify potentially relevant clusters of defects in the more detailed original defect map. The responsible apparatus can be identified by pattern recognition as part of an automated root cause analysis. Alternatively, reticle inspection data may be used as second measurement data.