Gaussian beam incident on the one-dimensional diffraction gratings with the high-K metal gate stack structures

Optical scatterometry has attracted extensive interest in extracting the geometric shape information of nanolithography patterns because of the trend of shrinking device size and complicated stack structure. RCWA is the numerical algorithm implemented in the current scatterometry tool to calculate the diffraction efficiency. However, the known weakness for the RCWA method is the analysis of metallic gratings illuminated by the TM wave. This research applies the FDTD method using the Gaussian beam excitation source to analyze the diffraction efficiency of HKMG gratings for the use in the optical scatterometry and verifies the numerical diffraction efficiency discrepancy between the Gaussian beam and plane wave excitation methods. The numerical study is carried out with the line/space nanolithography patterns on the HKMG process stacks at 45 nm node technology. The nanolithography patterns are modeled as 1-D surface relief gratings. The 0th order diffraction efficiency is analyzed as a function of CDs, SWAs, incident angles and pitches of the gratings. The study presents the impact of the polarizations of the incident waves on the diffraction efficiency. In addition, this research investigates the phase of the 0th diffraction order as a function of the SWAs and illustrates the corresponding SWA parameter effect on the phase distribution. This research suggests the minimum beam radius to converge the numerical diffraction efficiency using Gaussian beam excitation to it using the plan wave.