AN ERROR MEASURE FOR DOSE CORRECTION IN E-BEAM NANOLITHOGRAPHY

In this paper we address the problem of dose correction in ultrahigh resolution electron beam lithography. Here, the emphasis is on providing precise resist development profiles. This contrasts with the case of standard near-micron e-beam lithography in which computational efficiency and an ability to handle large data files are the major goals. The approach employed here is one of non-linear optimization. Rather than using the conventional quadratic cost function for dose optimization, the specifics of the resist development curve (i.e., saturation behavior, minimum critical dose, and gamma) are incorporated as inequalities. Results (both experimental and theoretical) are given for half-micron lines. Preliminary results on subhalf-micron lines are also given.