As extreme ultraviolet lithography advances towards smaller feature sizes, controlling stochastics in resist materials is critical for maximizing performance. Most polymer photoresists have inherent chain-to-chain variations in molecular weight, composition, and sequence due to synthetic limitations. This, along with heterogeneities from the distribution of chemical additives, contributes to unacceptable levels of patterning defects. Polypeptoids are unique as a class of bio-inspired polymers that can be synthesized with perfectly defined sequence, composition, and molecular weight, yielding a uniform material. In this study, we present polypeptoid-based chemically amplified resists for EUVL and demonstrate the effects of sequence and functionality on patternability, as evaluated under DUV and electron-beam lithography.
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