Products
MonTec Particle Optics Simulation Tools package
The MonTec Particle Optics Simulation Tools package consists out of the following programs for the design of charged
particle optical systems:
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MC Monte Carlo simulation program
The program MC is a FORTRAN based Monte Carlo program to simulate electron (or ion) Gaussian beam, shaped beam and projection lithography systems,
electron (or ion) scanning microscopes and similar devices. Monte Carlo simulation of particle beams is a brute force numerical
method in which a bunch (or sample) of particles with randomly chosen initial coordinates, reflecting the properties of the beam
in the vicinity of the source, is traced through a user defined system. The trajectories are determined by updating the
positions and velocities of each particle at regular time intervals, taking the Coulomb repulsion experienced from all other
particles in the sample into account. Lenses and other optical elements can be specified and are modelled in the thin-lens
approximation. The ray tracing can be repeated for a number of samples, each starting with a different "seed" of initial
conditions. The final coordinates, accumulated from all seeds, are processed in order to reduce the information to a
limited number of characteristic quantities, such as the width of the energy distribution, the defocusing distance and
the spatial broadening in the plane of best focus.
The calculation of the particle trajectories by the MC program can be based on a full numerical algorithm or on the so-called
FAST Monte Carlo (FMC) algorithm in which the analytical equations for two-particle interactions are utilised.
The MC program allows for a uniform acceleration or deceleration of the beam in the beam sections in between the optical
components. The particle positions as well as their energy and spatial distribution are stored by to file for separate analysis.
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INTERAC integrated modelling environment
INTERAC is a MS Excel based program that provides an interactive user interface to specify the properties of a particle optical
system consisting out of a particle source, followed by a succession of particle optical components - such as lenses,
quadrupoles, deflectors and apertures – separated by drift spaces or spaces where the beam is linearly accelerated or decelerated.
INTERAC provides a plot of the system as it is defined, showing the various optical components and the beam built-up from the
first-order primary rays. The system plot is generated dynamically, meaning that any changes made by the user to the input data
are directly reflected in the system plot. The system description defined this way is used by INTERAC to calculate first order
properties of the beam, the geometrical and chromatic aberrations and the impact of Coulomb interactions. The same system
description is used to execute both the analytical and slice-method calculations and to generate the input files for the
corresponding MC simulation. The results of the MC simulation can be imported to allow a direct comparison of the results
obtained with the analytical approach, the slice method and the MC simulation.
INTERAC serves to evaluate the system performance based on analytical equations and the slice method and also acts as
a shell around the MC program. Many tasks that should be performed by the user when running MC as a stand alone application -
such as the creation of the input files, the selection of proper values for the various MC modelling parameters as the sample size
and number of seeds and the scheduling of jobs to run on the background through the workload mechanism - are taken care off
by INTERAC automatically. INTERAC also provides the graphical tools to inspect Monte Carlo results. The various output files
generated by the Monte Carlo programming - containing the general output data, the energy distributions, the spatial
distributions in selected reference planes, the lateral particle positions in selected reference planes and the complete
phase-space co-ordinates of all particles near the target – can be imported by INTERAC for subsequent analysis.
INTERAC automatically create plots of the energy and spatial distributions, the lateral particle positions
in the reference planes, as well as various cross-section of the phase space co-ordinates near the target.
INTERAC thereby provides the means to inspect all MC results in full detail and replaces the program MCPLOT provided
in the previous release of the MonTec package.
INTERAC also provides various data management facilities to design and administrate computer experiments: INTERAC associates
each case with a unique run-number and employs series IDs to allow the user to specify groups of runs. Each run corresponds
to a unique user-specified set of MC input and output file names. Various file manipulations and data storage tasks can be
executed for a selected series of MC runs through a single instruction by the user. Furthermore, INTERAC has incorporated
the means to compare and plot the results of different runs to investigate the dependency on system as well as model parameters.
INTERAC has been designed to provide rich functionality and extensive flexibility. The user can specify various series
of runs to analyse a particle optical system under different experimental conditions, apply alternative theoretical approaches,
store the corresponding results and create customised plots to analyse trends. The user may also change various modelling,
data-management and plotting parameters to tailor INTERAC to its specific needs. In order to assure that INTERAC can be
properly maintained, default settings can be retrieved on individual basis or for all parameters as a whole.
The INTERAC integrated modelling environment is both powerful and easy to use. INTERAC provides the means
to model particle beam systems with limited efforts and without the need for a detailed understanding of the underlying theory.
Typical usage
The MonTec Particle Optics Simulation Tools package is used by industrial R&D groups, universities and research institutes
around the world and is typically used to:
- Verify and optimize the design of high speed electron and ion lithography systems,
- Verify and optimize the design of low-voltage scanning electron microscopes,
- Verify and optimize the design of high brigthness Schottky and field emission guns,
- Explore and evaluate novel particle optical concepts, such as e-beam projection systems and high resolution &
high throughput maskless wafer stepper, and
- Support university courses on particle optics.
Mastering the MonTec Particle Optics Simulation Tools is straightforward for students and academic professionals alike
due to its easy to use graphical interface, its interactive system definition facilities, its fully integrated capability to apply
different theoretical approaches, its automatic selection of key modelling parameters,
the comprehensive documentation, available electronically and in book form, and the extensive literature on the underlying theory.
Further information and purchasing
For further information on the software provided by MonTec you may want to
download
the product brochure or the MonTec manuals. Information on the Montec Package list prices are included in the MonTec product brochure.
For further information or product orders please send an email to
montec@caneval.com
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