Single spherical mirror optic for extreme ultraviolet lithography enabled by inverse lithography technology.

Traditionally, aberration correction in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) projection optics requires the use of multiple lossy mirrors, which results in prohibitively high source power requirements. We analyze a single spherical mirror projection optical system where aberration correction is built into the mask itself, through Inverse Lithography Technology (ILT). By having fewer mirrors, this would reduce the power requirements for EUV lithography. We model a single spherical mirror system with orders of magnitude more spherical aberration than would ever be tolerated in a traditional multiple mirror system. By using ILT, (implemented by an adjoint-based gradient descent optimization algorithm), we design photomasks that successfully print test patterns, in spite of these enormous aberrations. This mathematical method was tested with a 6 plane wave illumination source. Nonetheless, it would have poor power throughput from a totally incoherent source.