KEYWORDS: Extreme ultraviolet lithography, Etching, Electron beam lithography, Monte Carlo methods, Electron beams, Mercury, Silicon, Molecules, Dry etching
In this paper, we report on a novel metal organic photoresist based on heterometallic rings that was designed for electron beam and extreme ultraviolet lithography. From initial electron beam lithography studies, the resist performance demonstrated excellent resolution of 15 nm half-pitch (HP) and a silicon dry etch selectivity of 100:1 but at the expense of sensitivity. To improve sensitivity, a 3D Monte Carlo simulation was employed that utilizes a secondary electron generation model. The simulation suggested that the sensitivity could be dramatically improved while maintaining high resolution by incorporating HgCl2 species into the resist molecular design. This considerably improved the resist sensitivity without losing the high resolution, where it was determined that the resist sensitivity was increased by a factor of 1.6 and 1.94 while demonstrating a resolution of 15 nm and 16 nm HP when exposed with electrons and EUV radiation respectively. Using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements, we show that after exposure to the electron beam the resist materials are transformed into a metal oxyfluoride and this is why the resist demonstrates high resistance to silicon dry etch conditions achieving a selectivity of 60:1 at a resolution of 15 nm HP.
A negative tone heterometallic ring resist (HRR) based on a supramolecular assembly [ NH2(allyl)2 ] [ Cr7NiF8(piv)16 ] with previously demonstrated resolution down to sub 10-nm lines is evaluated in terms of its flexibility to be processed either “wet” (spin cast and solvent developed) or “dry” (deposition and development by vacuum sublimation). The implemented sublimation hardware fits easily in the wafer load-lock chamber of extreme ultraviolet and electron beam exposure systems dedicated to research and development activities and allows for HRR films to be uniformly deposited or developed in the same vacuum environment. The HRR shows a sublimation rate dependence on temperature that obeys a Clausius–Clapeyron relation, with thermal stability up to 275°C. Flood exposures of the HRR show identical sensitivity between wet- and dry-deposited films, whereas contrast degradation is observed when dry development is initiated by increasing the temperature prior to system pump down. A modified sublimation setup allows for the dry development of exposed HRR samples inside the electron beam tool without breaking vacuum. In this case, nominally patterned 25 nm L/S are identically resolved at 30 keV for wet- or dry-developed HRR.
KEYWORDS: Extreme ultraviolet lithography, Selenium, Electron beam lithography, Monte Carlo methods, Metals, Mercury, Molecules, Chemical species, Photomicroscopy, Absorption
A new class of negative-tone resist materials has been developed for electron beam and extreme ultraviolet lithography. The resist is based on heterometallic rings. From initial electron beam lithography studies, the resist performance demonstrated a resolution of 40-nm pitch but at the expense of a low sensitivity. To improve the sensitivity, we incorporated HgCl2 and HgI2 into the resist molecular design. This dramatically improved the resist sensitivity while maintaining high resolution. This improvement was demonstrated using electron beam and extreme ultraviolet lithography.
A new class of resist materials has been developed that is based on a family of heterometallic rings. The work is founded on a Monte Carlo simulation that utilizes a secondary and Auger electron generation model to design resist materials for high resolution electron beam lithography. The resist reduces the scattering of incident electrons to obtain line structures that have a width of 15 nm on a 40 nm pitch. This comes at the expense of lowering the sensitivity of the resist, which results in the need for large exposure doses. Low sensitivity can be dramatically improved by incorporating appropriate functional alkene groups around the metal-organic core, for example by replacing the pivalate component with a methacrylate molecule. This increases the resist sensitivity by a factor of 22.6 and demonstrates strong agreement between the Monte Carlo simulation and the experimental results. After the exposure and development processes, what remains of the resist material is a metal-oxide that is extremely resistant to silicon dry etch conditions; the etch selectivity has been measured to be 61:1.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.