深紫外光刻投影物镜是光刻机的核心部件, 然而无论是照明光场偏振态的空间分布, 还是光刻投影物镜自身的偏振像差都将改变光束的紧聚焦特性, 对成像质量造成不可忽略的影响。基于三维琼斯矩阵, 把偏振像差函数推广到三维空间, 建立了三维相干光场中偏振像差的评价方法, 并分析了典型的偏振敏感光学系统——深紫外光刻投影物镜的三维偏振像差, 详细阐述了其物理意义。研究发现: 三维偏振像差函数的光瞳分布与视场、光学薄膜以及光学系统的自身结构密切相关。深入讨论了光学薄膜及偏振效应对光刻投影物镜成像质量的影响, 进一步研究了照明光场的偏振态分布与光学系统波像差的关系, 研究表明: 光学薄膜引入的附加位相将导致光刻投影物镜的像质明显下降, 而采用径向矢量光场照明可以改善成像质量。

The deep ultraviolet lithography projection lens is the core component of the photolithography machine. However, whether the spatial distribution of the polarization state of the illumination field or the polarization aberration of the photolithography projection lens will change the compact focusing characteristic of the beam, which can not be neglected in the imaging quality. Based on the 3D Jones matrix, the polarization aberration functions were extended to the 3D space, and the evaluation method of polarization aberration for 3D coherent light field was established. The 3D polarization aberrations of the deep ultraviolet lithography projection objective, which was a typical polarization-sensitive optical system, were analyzed. And its physical significance was expounded in detail. It is found that the distributions of the 3D polarization functions in exit pupil are closely related to its own optical parameters, such as field of view, coatings and structural parameters. The effects of coatings and polarization effect on the imaging quality of lithography projection lens were discussed. And the relationships between the polarization distributions of the illuminated beam and the wavefront aberration of the optical system were further studied. The results show that the additional phase introduced by coatings leads to a significant decrease of the image quality for lithography projection lens, and the illumination by the radially vector beam can improve the image quality.