Abstract

To improve the quality of grating masks made by scanning beam interference lithography, this article established a mathematical model of step-scanning exposure and analyzed the effects of the beam drift error on the interference image. Beam angle drift can be decomposed into the drift error ${\delta }_x$ in the exposure plane (XOZ plane) and the drift error ${\delta }_y$ perpendicular to the plane. Analysis shows that the ${\delta }_x$ has a major impact on the interference fringes during exposure, which may affect the precision of phase lock. ${\delta }_y$ leads to the appearance of deflected interference strips and affects the exposure dose. When a low-frequency drift error appears in the light path, the exposure contrast on the photoresist will decrease with the exposure process, which makes the fabrication of large-size diffraction gratings difficult. Furthermore, taking advantage of the characteristics of a scanning beam interference lithography system, an exposed beam stable system was designed that can effectively suppress the low-frequency drift of the beam. The total beam angle control accuracy is better than the 2.7 μrad, and position control accuracy is better than 3.9 μm (both for $1\sigma$), which achieves the expected goal of the design.

© 2017 Optical Society of America

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