| A new type of optical microscope based on the configuration of the Mirau interferometer is introduced in this dissertation. The basic principle of this device is to employ an interferometric microscope with a spatially and temporally incoherent light source, and to use, as the detected output, the correlation signal between the beams reflected from the object and from a plane mirror, respectively. By incorporating technological advances in integrated circuit fabrication into classical optics, we have fabricated thin silicon nitride membranes (84 nm) for the Mirau interferometer, and have thus eliminated the aberrations in a high numerical aperture ({dollar}>{dollar}0.5) Mirau interference microscope.; Since the Mirau Correlation Microscope (MCM), like other interference microscopes, is capable of registering both the amplitude and phase of the reflected signal, it has useful applications in the field of integrated circuit metrology. With its extra phase information, the MCM is capable of numerous tasks in IC metrology such as cross-sectioning imaging, surface profiling, critical dimension linewidth measurement, edge profiling and overlay metrology. In this thesis, we have utilized the Fourier and Hilbert transform algorithms for image analysis and then used these algorithms to obtain two dimensional intensity and phase images and surfaced profiles of IC structures.; A more challenging task in optical metrology is sub-micron critical dimension linewidth measurement on photoresist structures; we have achieved measurements down to 0.35 {dollar}mu{dollar}m for resist trenches. Theoretical simulations for the scattered fields from integrated circuit structures were then proposed for identifying the scattered fields from resist strips which would otherwise be difficult to recognize. |
