Method to construct the initial structure of optical systems based on full-field aberration correction

Abstract

To meet full-field image quality requirements for extremely low aberration optical systems, an initial structure construction method for reflective optical systems based on full-field aberration correction is proposed. The aberration of the full field is used as the main evaluation criterion in this method. A multi-field evaluation function is established using the aberration values of multiple characteristic field points to represent the full-field imaging quality, and spatial ray tracing is introduced to constrain the optical system structure. Multi-objective optimization of the evaluation function is performed using a combinatorial nondominated sorting and metaheuristics algorithm; an initial optical system with a reasonable structure and corrected third-order aberrations over the full field is subsequently obtained. After optimization, an extreme ultraviolet lithography objective with a numerical aperture of 0.33 and root-mean-square wavefront error of 0.128 nm (1/105λ,λ=13.5nm) is obtained.