Exposed regions

Fig. 35. Process flow for thin-film imaging lithography (a) bilayer process and (b) top surface imaging. The bilayer process shown here employs a positive-tone imaging layer. The TSI process illustrated refles on preferential silicon incorporation in the exposed regions of the imaging layer to give a...

Positive resists have as the photoreactive component a dissolution inhibitor that is destroyed in the regions exposed to the light. The resist is developed in an aqueous solution, where the exposed region dissolves away. The resists do not swell as much in the aqueous developer, allowing higher resolution. 

Spontaneous dewetting takes place by the formation of a droplet connected to the second layer. As a function of time, the droplets increase in volume while the area covered by the second layer decreases. In cases where the bare substrate was partly exposed, the diffusion and aggregation of second-layer molecules into droplets preserved the exposed regions of the substrate, as shown in Figure 20. 

Nealey and coworkers [75,76,146] took a similar approach and applied lithographically defined self-assembled monolayers as substrates to direct the orientation of block copolymer thin films. After EUV interferometic lithography on octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) or phenylethyltrichlorosilane (PETS) monolayers, PS-fr-PMMA block copolymers were deposited and annealed on the substrates. Due to the selective wetting of PS and PMMA on the unexposed and exposed regions, respectively, they were able to obtain large areas of perpendicular lamella when the commensurate condition was fulfilled. 

The workhorse of the VLSI industry today is a composite novolac-diazonaphthoquinone photoresist that evolved from similar materials developed for the manufacture of photoplates used in the printing industry in the early 1900 s (23). The novolac matrix resin is a condensation polymer of a substituted phenol and formaldehyde that is rendered insoluble in aqueous base through addition of 10-20 wt% of a diazonaphthoquinone photoactive dissolution inhibitor (PAC). Upon irradiation, the PAC undergoes a Wolff rearrangement followed by hydrolysis to afford a base-soluble indene carboxylic acid. This reaction renders the exposed regions of the composite films soluble in aqueous base, and allows image formation. A schematic representation of the chemistry of this solution inhibition resist is shown in Figure 6. 

Interest in solution inhibition resist systems is not limited to photoresist technology. Systems that are sensitive to electron-beam irradiation have also been of active interest. While conventional positive photoresists may be used for e-beam applications (31,32), they exhibit poor sensitivity and alternatives are desirable. Bowden, et al, at AT T Bell Laboratories, developed a novel, novolac-poly(2-methyl-l-pentene sulfone) (PMPS) composite resist, NPR (Figure 9) (33,34). PMPS, which acts as a dissolution inhibitor for the novolac resin, undergoes spontaneous depolymerization upon irradiation (35). Subsequent vaporization facilitates aqueous base removal of the exposed regions. Resist systems based on this chemistry have also been reported by other workers (36,37). 

Here, L total is the depth of the etched hole per pulse and is assumed to be the sum of photochemical and photothermal contributions, Tphoto and Thermal, respectively 0Ceff is the effective photon absorption coefficient of the medium and can vary with laser emission characteristics, e g., photon density Fis the incident laser fluence Fth is the medium s threshold fluence A and F are the effective frequency factor with units of pm/pulse and the effective activation energy with units of J/cm2, respectively, for the zeroth-order thermal rate constant F0, comparable in magnitude to Fth, is important only at low fluences.64 Equation (5) is obtained after assuming that the polymer temperature T in the laser-exposed region of mass mp and the thermal rate constant k are given, respectively, as... 

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