A new method to fabricate the gratings useful for integrated optical circuits (IOC) is described. The method combines optical projection lithography with spatial filtering.The projection lens uses nearly coherent illumination. Only the two first orders diffracted by the mask grating are allowed to pass through the lens. This produces a grating pattern in the image plane that has a high contrast (near 100%), a large depth of focus (approx. ± 13 gm), and a period half of what would have been obtained in normal imaging. Thus, with a 5X reduction lens a 5 pm period grating on the mask produces a 0.5 p.m period image on the wafer. Gratings of different periods, sizes, locations, orientations, and configurations (chirped, phase shifted, etc.) can all be produced on the same chip with a single exposure. Using a deep UV lens with a line-narrowed 248 nm KrF excimer laser for illumination, we printed 0.5 pm period gratings in an oxide layer on 10 mm X 10 mm silicon chips. Because of the high contrast, the photoresist patterns had very high quality. In addition, the extended depth of focus was observed. This method is primarily useful for patterning periodic structures. Lenses designed for this system could be made with large numerical apertures and/or image fields, and be able to pattern gratings of 0.23 gm period for semiconductor waveguide devices. This technique opens up the possibility of high-volume production of IOC chips with Bragg filters using standard IC fabrication facilities.

Date Published: 6 December 1988
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 0993, Integrated Optical Circuit Engineering VI, (6 December 1988); doi: 10.1117/12.960070

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0993:
Integrated Optical Circuit Engineering VI
Mark A. Mentzer, Editor(s)