Resolution enhanced technologies in optical metrology

The continued miniaturization in micro- and nanotechnologies and the increasing demands on the quality of industrial products confront optical principles with new challenges. An important barrier for optical sensors is the diffraction limited lateral resolution. This physical limitation is increasingly important not only for microscopic techniques but also in 3d surface inspection of extended objects. Consequently, the search for resolution enhanced technologies becomes more important. Starting from a general discussion of the resolution problem two approaches are presented. The first is a model based approach for image interpretation in CD-metrology. The second deals with a multi-sensor approach using principles of scaled metrology for the high-resolved inspection of extended surfaces.