Naonori KITA

Optical Design Department, Precision Equipment Company, Nikon Corporation, Kumagaya, Saitama 360-8559, Japan

(Received July 15, 2008; Accepted February 6, 2009)

Optimizing the polarization characteristics of an optical system is generally a complicated problem, unlike the case of optimizing scalar characteristics such as pupil function. Here, we will propose a linear approximation approach to solve this problem systematically and define the conditions to be satisfied to make the approximation accurate. This approximation scheme is constructed by naturally extending a concept of the scalar imaging theory.

Key words: polarization aberration, lithography, Jones matrix pupil, Pauli matrices, matrix exponential