The use of electrostatic chucks in electron beam extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask patterning has been proposed for distortion control. The high voltages used in electrostatic chucking have the potential to establish fringe field near the edge of the critical area between the mask and the bottom lens plane of the electron optics. This electrostatic field may deflect the trajectories of imaging electrons, and images near the edge of the patterned mask would be degraded. The authors developed three-dimensional (3D) models for the electrostatic chucks and EUV masks and obtained the fringe field information using first order finite element method in Munro's electron beam software (MEBSSW Ltd., 14 Cornwall Gardens, London SW7 4AN, England). Using electron ray tracing in the field enabled them to compute the deflection and blur introduced on an otherwise perfect point image. To understand how fringe fields influence the image condition of electron optic system when writing on the edge of EUV mask critical area, they need to combine two-dimensional (2D) modeling of electron optic system and 3D modeling of the fringe field. Aberration coefficients for the electron optics are obtained in the 2D models and are used for setting up the initial ray conditions for a large number of electrons as they enter the space between the final lens and the writing plane. These rays are then traced in the fringe field, and the final positions of the electrons recorded and statistically counted. The current density profiles for the images are then plotted as the histogram of electron counts versus position coordinates on the image plane. Comparing the current density profiles of the image with and without fringe field, they are able to determine the displacement and CD uniformity error introduced by the fringe field effect. 0 2006 American Vacuum Society.