High-sensitivity nanocomposite resist materials for x-ray and EUV lithography (original) (raw)
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Nanomaterials
The need for decreasing semiconductor device critical dimensions at feature sizes below the 20 nm resolution limit has led the semiconductor industry to adopt extreme ultra violet (EUV) lithography with exposure at 13.5 nm as the main next generation lithographic technology. The broad consensus on this direction has triggered a dramatic increase of interest on resist materials of high sensitivity especially designed for use in the EUV spectral region in order to meet the strict requirements needed for overcoming the source brightness issues and securing the cost efficiency of the technology. To this direction both fundamental studies on the radiation induced chemistry in this spectral area and a plethora of new ideas targeting at the design of new highly sensitive and top performing resists have been proposed. Besides the traditional areas of acid-catalyzed chemically amplified resists and the resists based on polymer backbone breaking new unconventional ideas have been proposed bas...
Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 2011
Ultrahigh loadings of photoacid generators (PAGs) in phenolic extreme ultraviolet (EUV) resists have generated the highest known film quantum yields (FQYs). We evaluate the performance of these resists in terms of resolution, line-edge roughness (LER), and sensitivity and collectively evaluate these three parameters (known as RLS) in terms of KLUP and Z-Parameter figures of merit. An analytical model describing the kinetics of photodecomposition was developed to explain the relationship between film quantum yield and PAG concentration. Resists were prepared using a broad range of concentrations of iodonium (DTBPI-PFBS), sulfonium (TPS-PFBS), and non-ionic (NDI-PFBS) PAGs. The model fits the experimental data (correlation coefficient R2 = 0.998, 0.994, and 0.995) and compares the rate at which electrons react with PAGs or recombine with holes. Resists prepared with 15--20 wt % of iodonium nonaflate PAG exhibit both high quantum yields and the best RLS performance as determined using both KLUP and Z-Parameter methodologies. The improvement in RLS performance correlates with the increase in FQY at higher PAG concentrations.