摘要 |
A method and apparatus for inspecting photomasks having phase shifting elements which shift the phase of light but are otherwise transparent. A coherent light source is directed through a mask to be inspected, through an objective lens, through an 180 DEG phase shifting unit, and to an image divider. The coherent light source is also directed through a transparent reference substrate to the image divider. The mask to be inspected is formed on a transparent mask substrate having the same thickness and formed from the same material as the transparent reference substrate. The intensity of the light exiting the image divider is proportional to the square of the cosine of 1800 plus the phase angle between the light exiting the reference substrate and the light exiting the mask under test. The light exiting the image divider is directed to a CCD image sensor. An image computer compares the output of the CCD image sensor with an image formed from the image database and identifies defects in the mask under test.
|