Abstract: An optical system for non-invasive cytometry of mammalian cells includes a light source, a cell positioner, an optical imager, an optical wavefront sensor and a computer. The light source produces an illuminating beam of spatially coherent radiation. The cell positioner sequentially moves a single cell from a population of multiple cells into a sub-aperture region of the illumination beam whose wavefront is perturbed in response to the physical structure of the single cell. An optical system relays a magnified image of the sub-aperture region containing the cell to an image plane. At the image plane a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is positioned. Within the pupil of the wavefront sensor the local tilts of the wavefront in the sub-aperture region are measured and sent to a computer. Software calculates the Zernike coefficients corresponding to the aberration induced by the structure of each cell. Their Zernike signatures classify the cells into distinct types.

Abstract: An optical apparatus used for the efficient characterization of photoresist material includes at least one grating interferometer having at least two gratings that together define an optical recombination plane. An optical stop blocks any zeroth order beam from propagating through the apparatus. A reticle positioned at the recombination plane has at least one fiducial marking therein. A lithographic imaging optical tool is positioned so that its input optical plane is substantially coincident with the optical recombination plane and its output imaging plane is substantially coincident with photoresist on a wafer. The apparatus writes in the photoresist latent, sinusoidal grating patterns, preferably of different spatial frequencies, as well as at least one fiducial mark whose pattern is determined by the marking in the reticle. After the photoresist is developed, its intrinsic spatial resolution may be determined by automated means.

Abstract: An efficient method and system is provided for computing lithographic images that takes into account vector effects such as lens birefringence, resist stack effects and tailored source polarizations, and may also include blur effects of the mask and the resist. These effects are included by forming a generalized bilinear kernel, which is independent of the mask transmission function, which can then be treated using a decomposition to allow rapid computation of an image that includes such non-scalar effects. Dominant eigenfunctions of the generalized bilinear kernel can be used to pre-compute convolutions with possible polygon sectors. A mask transmission function can then be decomposed into polygon sectors, and weighted pre-images may be formed from a coherent sum of the pre-computed convolutions for the appropriate mask polygon sectors. The image at a point may be formed from the incoherent sum of the weighted pre-images over all of the dominant eigenfunctions of the generalized bilinear kernel.

Abstract: An optical apparatus used for the efficient characterization of photoresist material includes at least one grating interferometer having at least two gratings that together define an optical recombination plane. An optical stop blocks any zeroth order beam from propagating through the apparatus. A reticle positioned at the recombination plane has at least one fiducial marking therein. A lithographic imaging optical tool is positioned so that its input optical plane is substantially coincident with the optical recombination plane and its output imaging plane is substantially coincident with photoresist on a wafer. The apparatus writes in the photoresist latent, sinusoidal grating patterns, preferably of different spatial frequencies, as well as at least one fiducial mark whose pattern is determined by the marking in the reticle. After the photoresist is developed, its intrinsic spatial resolution may be determined by automated means.