Patterning of Tailored Polycarbonate Based Non‐Chemically Amplified Resists Using Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography

Abstract

A series of high-performance polycarbonates have been prepared with glass-transition temperatures and decomposition temperatures that are tunable by varying the repeat-unit chemical structure. Patterning of the polymers with extreme UV lithography has been achieved by taking advantage of direct photoinduced chain scission of the polymer chains, which results in a molecular-weight based solubility switch. After selective development of the irradiated regions of the polymers, feature sizes as small as 28.6 nm have been printed and the importance of resist-developer interactions for maximizing image quality has been demonstrated.

Data on Specific Polymers

“…302 Patterning of polycarbonate with extreme UV lithography has been achieved by taking advantage of direct photoinduced chain scission of the polymer chains, which results in a molecular-weight based solubility switch. 303 After selective development of the irradiated regions of the polymers, feature sizes as small as 28.6 nm have been printed. 303 …”

“…303 After selective development of the irradiated regions of the polymers, feature sizes as small as 28.6 nm have been printed. 303 …”

Extending the scope of poly(styrene)-block-poly(methyl methacrylate) for directed self-assembly

“…Many gains can be made by optimisation of resist formulations, although more disruptive technologies include the redesign of the resists and such approaches include: polymer bound PAG resists, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] molecular glass resists [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and chain scissioning resists. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] In particular, polymer bound PAG resists have achieved a great deal of success as EUVL platforms, although improvements are still required for achieving the ITRS goals. Healing of LER following development is another approach that has led to significant improvements in LER.…”

Healing LER using directed self assembly: treatment of EUVL resists with aqueous solutions of block copolymers

“…Apart from resist optimisation, more radical solutions include polymer bound PAG resists, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] molecular glass resists [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and chain scissioning resists. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] Polymer bound PAG resists, in particular, have been successful in EUVL, although improvements are still required for achieving the ITRS goals. Alternative lithography techniques such as directed self assembly (DSA) of block copolymers have also been raising significant interest, because of their ability to form small ordered features.…”