Structured illumination ptychography and at-wavelength characterization with an EUV diffuser at 13.5†nm wavelength.

Structured illumination is essential for high-performance ptychography. Especially in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) range, where reflective optics are prevalent, the generation of structured beams is challenging and, so far, mostly amplitude-only masks have been used. In this study, we generate a highly structured beam using a phase-shifting diffuser optimized for 13.5 nm wavelength and apply this beam to EUV ptychography. This tailored illumination significantly enhances the quality and resolution of the ptychography reconstructions. In particular, when utilizing the full dynamics range of the detector, the resolution has been improved from 125 nm, when using an unstructured beam, to 34 nm. Further, ptychography enables the quantitative measurement of both the amplitude and phase of the EUV diffuser at 13.5 nm wavelength. This capability allows us to evaluate the influence of imperfections and contaminations on its "at wavelength" performance, paving the way for advanced EUV metrology applications and highlighting its importance for future developments in nanolithography and related fields.

Broadband ptychography using curved wavefront illumination.

We examine the interplay between spectral bandwidth and illumination curvature in ptychography. By tailoring the divergence of the illumination, broader spectral bandwidths can be tolerated without requiring algorithmic modifications to the forward model. In particular, a strong wavefront curvature transitions a far-field diffraction geometry to an effectively near-field one, which is less affected by temporal coherence effects. The relaxed temporal coherence requirements allow for leveraging wider spectral bandwidths and larger illumination spots. Our findings open up new avenues towards utilizing pink and broadband beams for increased flux and throughput at both synchrotron facilities and lab-scale beamlines.

Continuously tunable high photon flux high harmonic source.

In this work, a continuously tunable extreme ultraviolet source delivering a state-of-the-art photon flux of >1011 ph/s/eV spanning from 50 eV to 70 eV is presented. The setup consists of a high-power fiber laser with a subsequent multipass cell followed by a waveguide-based high harmonic generation setup. Spectral tuning over the full line spacing is achieved by slightly adjusting the lasers driving pulse energy, utilizing nonlinear propagation effects and pulse chirping. The presented method enables a high tuning speed while delivering reproducible and reliable results due to a simple experimental realization. For possible future experiments, a method for continuous, on-demand pulse-to-pulse switching of the generated XUV radiation with full spectral coverage is conceived.

High-speed and wide-field nanoscale table-top ptychographic EUV imaging and beam characterization with a sCMOS detector.

We present high-speed and wide-field EUV ptychography at 13.5 nm wavelength using a table-top high-order harmonic source. Compared to previous measurements, the total measurement time is significantly reduced by up to a factor of five by employing a scientific complementary metal oxide semiconductor (sCMOS) detector that is combined with an optimized multilayer mirror configuration. The fast frame rate of the sCMOS detector enables wide-field imaging with a field of view of 100 µm × 100 µm with an imaging speed of 4.6 Mpix/h. Furthermore, fast EUV wavefront characterization is employed using a combination of the sCMOS detector with orthogonal probe relaxation.

PtyLab.m/py/jl: a cross-platform, open-source inverse modeling toolbox for conventional and Fourier ptychography.

Conventional (CP) and Fourier (FP) ptychography have emerged as versatile quantitative phase imaging techniques. While the main application cases for each technique are different, namely lens-less short wavelength imaging for CP and lens-based visible light imaging for FP, both methods share a common algorithmic ground. CP and FP have in part independently evolved to include experimentally robust forward models and inversion techniques. This separation has resulted in a plethora of algorithmic extensions, some of which have not crossed the boundary from one modality to the other. Here, we present an open source, cross-platform software, called PtyLab, enabling both CP and FP data analysis in a unified framework. With this framework, we aim to facilitate and accelerate cross-pollination between the two techniques. Moreover, the availability in Matlab, Python, and Julia will set a low barrier to enter each field.

Real-time phase-retrieval and wavefront sensing enabled by an artificial neural network.

In this manuscript we demonstrate a method to reconstruct the wavefront of focused beams from a measured diffraction pattern behind a diffracting mask in real-time. The phase problem is solved by means of a neural network, which is trained with simulated data and verified with experimental data. The neural network allows live reconstructions within a few milliseconds, which previously with iterative phase retrieval took several seconds, thus allowing the adjustment of complex systems and correction by adaptive optics in real time. The neural network additionally outperforms iterative phase retrieval with high noise diffraction patterns.

Generation of coherent broadband high photon flux continua in the XUV with a sub-two-cycle fiber laser.

High harmonic sources can provide ultrashort pulses of coherent radiation in the XUV and X-ray spectral region. In this paper we utilize a sub-two-cycle femtosecond fiber laser to efficiently generate a broadband continuum of high-order harmonics between 70 eV and 120 eV. The average power delivered by this source ranges from > 0.2 µW/eV at 80 eV to >0.03 µW/eV at 120 eV. At 92 eV (13.5 nm wavelength), we measured a coherent record-high average power of 0.1 µW/eV, which corresponds to 7 · 109 ph/s/eV, with a long-term stability of 0.8% rms deviation over a 20 min time period. The presented approach is average power scalable and promises up to 1011 ph/s/eV in the near future. With additional carrier-envelop phase control even isolated attosecond pulses can be expected from such sources. The combination of high flux, high photon energy and ultrashort (sub-) fs duration will enable photon-hungry time-resolved and multidimensional studies.

Single-shot characterization of strongly focused coherent XUV and soft X-ray beams.

In this Letter, we present a novel, to the best of our knowledge, single-shot method for characterizing focused coherent beams. We utilize a dedicated amplitude-only mask, in combination with an iterative phase retrieval algorithm, to reconstruct the amplitude and phase of a focused beam from a single measured far-field diffraction pattern alone. In a proof-of-principle experiment at a wavelength of 13.5 nm, we demonstrate our new method and obtain an RMS phase error of better than λ/70. This method will find applications in the alignment of complex optical systems, real-time feedback to adaptive optics, and single-shot beam characterization, e.g., at free-electron lasers or high-order harmonic beamlines.

Material-specific high-resolution table-top extreme ultraviolet microscopy.

Microscopy with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation holds promise for high-resolution imaging with excellent material contrast, due to the short wavelength and numerous element-specific absorption edges available in this spectral range. At the same time, EUV radiation has significantly larger penetration depths than electrons. It thus enables a nano-scale view into complex three-dimensional structures that are important for material science, semiconductor metrology, and next-generation nano-devices. Here, we present high-resolution and material-specific microscopy at 13.5 nm wavelength. We combine a highly stable, high photon-flux, table-top EUV source with an interferometrically stabilized ptychography setup. By utilizing structured EUV illumination, we overcome the limitations of conventional EUV focusing optics and demonstrate high-resolution microscopy at a half-pitch lateral resolution of 16 nm. Moreover, we propose mixed-state orthogonal probe relaxation ptychography, enabling robust phase-contrast imaging over wide fields of view and long acquisition times. In this way, the complex transmission of an integrated circuit is precisely reconstructed, allowing for the classification of the material composition of mesoscopic semiconductor systems.

Wavelength-scale ptychographic coherent diffractive imaging using a high-order harmonic source.

Ptychography enables coherent diffractive imaging (CDI) of extended samples by raster scanning across the illuminating XUV/X-ray beam, thereby generalizing the unique advantages of CDI techniques. Table-top realizations of this method are urgently needed for many applications in sciences and industry. Previously, it was only possible to image features much larger than the illuminating wavelength with table-top ptychography although knife-edge tests suggested sub-wavelength resolution. However, most real-world imaging applications require resolving of the smallest and closely-spaced features of a sample in an extended field of view. In this work, resolving features as small as 2.5 λ (45 nm) using a table-top ptychography setup is demonstrated by employing a high-order harmonic XUV source with record-high photon flux. For the first time, a Rayleigh-type criterion is used as a direct and unambiguous resolution metric for high-resolution table-top setup. This reliably qualifies this imaging system for real-world applications e.g. in biological sciences, material sciences, imaging integrated circuits and semiconductor mask inspection.