Coherent Fourier scatterometry for detection of nanometer-sized particles on a planar substrate surface

Inspection tools for nano-particle contamination on a planar substrate surface is a critical problem in micro-electronics. The present solutions are either expensive and slow or inexpensive and fast but have low sensitivity because of limitations due to diffraction. Most of them are also substrate specific. In this article we report how Coherent...

Submicron hollow spot generation by solid immersion lens and structured illumination

We report on the experimental and numerical demonstration of immersed submicron-size hollow focused spots, generated by structuring the polarization state of an incident light beam impinging on a micro-size solid immersion lens (?-SIL) made of SiO2. Such structured focal spots are characterized by a doughnut-shaped intensity distribution, whose...

Direct measurement of the near-field super resolved focused spot in InSb

Under appropriate laser exposure, a thin film of InSb exhibits a sub-wavelength thermally modified area that can be used to focus light beyond the diffraction limit. This technique, called Super-Resolution Near-Field Structure, is a potential candidate for ultrahigh density optical data storage and many other high-resolution applications. We...