Formation of deprotected fuzzy blobs in chemically amplified resists |
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| Authors: | Ronald L Jones Tengjiao Hu Eric K Lin Wen-Li Wu Dario L Goldfarb Marie Angelopoulos Brian C Trinque Gerard M Schmid Michael D Stewart C Grant Willson |
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| Institution: | 1. Polymers Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899;2. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598;3. Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712;4. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712;5. Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712 |
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| Abstract: | The requirement of nanometer dimensional control in photolithographic patterning underlies the future of emerging technologies, including next-generation semiconductors, nanofluids, photonics, and microelectromechanical systems. For chemically amplified resists, dimensional control is mediated by the diffusion and reaction of photogenerated acids within a polymer-based photoresist matrix. The complex nature of the combined processes of reaction and diffusion prohibit the routine measurement of this phenomenon. Using small-angle neutron scattering, we have measured the form of the diffusion–reaction path of a photogenerated acid within a model photoresist matrix with a labeled protection group on the polymer side group. During the deprotection reaction, changes in the scattering form factor result from the shape and form of the deprotected regions. The individual volumes or blobs of reacted material are diffuse, with a fuzzy boundary between the reacted and unreacted regions. The impact of these results on the pattern quality is also discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 3063–3069, 2004 |
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| Keywords: | micropatterning photolithography reaction diffusion small-angle neutron scattering photoresists morphology nanotechnology |
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