Polarization characteristics of state-of-art lithography optics reconstructed from on-body measurement

In hyper-NA imaging, the vector properties of the light become important. Therefore, to characterize and to fully exploit the state-of-the-art lithographic apparatus, reconstruction of polarization matrices in the pupil plain of a projection lens has become indispensable. We will present a reconstructed Jones matrix of a benchtest projection optic. The reconstruction method is based on the concept of the first canonical coordinate of the Lie group, which conjures up a geometrical approach. The Jones matrix of this benchtest immersion projection lens is successfully reconstructed using the data obtained by an on-body tool called iPot. A reconstructed polarized wavefront and polarized wavefront measured by iPot agree very well. This newly developed methodology is essential to capturing the nature of light transformations in the hyper-NA projection lenses. It is of fundamental importance to quantifying the properties of the state-of-the-art projection lenses used in lithography.