Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

In modern wafer metrology, electromagnetic scattering problems can become much more difficult for more complex geometries and higher optical contrasts, and there is a strong demand for a Maxwell solver that is accurate, efficient, and sufficiently flexible to handle complex geometries. In this presentation, we provide an overview of a recently developed spatial spectral Maxwell solver designed for dielectric layered mediums, utilizing Gabor frames. We also highlight the latest enhancements aimed at tackling such challenges. To increase the rate of convergence of Krylov subspace solvers used in the spatial spectral method, a tailored preconditioner has been designed and applied. Further, we propose an analytical method to efficiently compute Gabor coefficients of 2D indicator functions supported on complex geometries. Finally, we demonstrate how this spatial spectral method can effectively model and solve an optical metrology problem posed by our industry user, and hence contribute to an optical metrology sensor model for non-periodic metrology targets.