Abstract
Currently miniaturized electron-optical columns find their way into electron beam lithography systems. For better lithography process, it is required to make smaller spot size and longer working distance. But, the micro-columns of the multi-beam lithography system suffer from chromatic and spherical aberration, even when the electron beam is exactly on the symmetric axis of the micro-column. The off-axis error of the electron emitting source is expected to become worse with increasing off-axis distance of the focusing spot. Especially the electron beams far from the system optical axis have a non-negligible asymmetric intensity distribution in the micro-column. In this paper, the effect of the off-axis e-beam source is analyzed. To analyze this effect is to introduce a micro-column model of which the e-beam emitting source is aligned with the center of the electron beam by shifting them perpendicular to the system optical axis. The presented solution can be used to analysis the performance of the multi-electron-beam system. The performance parameters, such as the working distances and the focusing position are obtained by the computational simulations as a function of the off-axis distance of the emitting source.
