Chemical reactions leading to latent image formation in Chemically Amplified Resists (CARs) upon EUV exposure remain poorly understood. One barrier to understanding exposure chemistry lies in the sheer number of possible, competing reactions that occur upon exposure. Thus, we have combined high-throughput density functional theory and a chemical reaction network to perform kinetic Monte Carlo modelling to predict reactions occurring in an ESCAP photoresist upon blanket EUV exposure. Our model predicts the formation of several products, some of which have been previously experimentally observed outgassing from ESCAP photoresists, as well as new products formed within the polymer matrix. Additionally, we have performed analysis of our simulations to better understand pathways by which these products form. Here, we describe the refinement of our model, relevant, qualitative results, and compare the output of our model to experiments.
Photoresist stochastic effects are the result of nano-scale compositional variations stemming from statistical effects in both the process (e.g. photon shot-noise statistics) and the innate film structure. Several approaches to improve materials homogeneity have been pursued, for example the use of narrow molecular weight distributions, polymer-bound PAG and quencher, and more recently the preparation of photoresist polymers with uniform lengths and controlled sequences using solid-phase synthetic methods. We describe here a computational methodology to characterize how these approaches affect the film’s internal compositional uniformity. We use a coarse-grained three-dimensional spatial model to characterize how the spatial statistics of photoresist films are affected by polymer molecular weight, polydispersity, controlled and random sequence, polymer-bound photoacid generator/quencher and component aggregation. We examine how EUV exposure and deprotection impact the spatial statistics and discuss the connection between film structure and photoresist stochastic effects.
Mechanisms of reactions occurring in chemically amplified resists (CARs) upon exposure to EUV light, and their effects on latent image formation, remain poorly understood. To better control stochastics related to chemical reactivity in CARs, our goal is to develop a model that correctly captures the rates of formation of products that can be experimentally measured in an ESCAP photoresist upon exposure to EUV light. We have previously reported the generation of a chemical reaction network that describes reactions likely to occur upon EUV exposure of a random copolymer of poly(hydroxystyrene) and poly(methylmethacrylate), triphenylsulfonium nonaflate, and triphenylsulfonium cyanobenzoate. Here, we detail the use of this network to create a reaction-diffusion model where photoionization, electron ionization, and electron attachment occur, as well as reactions between ions and species formed from photon- and electron-catalyzed processes. Results from this model can be directly compared to future experimental work conducted on ESCAP photoresists.
To better control stochastics related to chemical reactivity in CARs, our goal is to develop a model that captures the thermodynamics and kinetics of ionization and reactions that occur in an ESCAP photoresist upon exposure to EUV light. To this end, we have used high-throughput density functional theory workflows to generate a chemical reaction network to describe photoionization and electron ionization as well as downstream reactions likely to occur upon EUV exposure and post-exposure bake of a random copolymer of poly(hydroxystyrene) and poly(methylmethacrylate), triphenylsulfonium nonaflate, and triphenylsulfonium cyanobenzoate. This work details the generation of the reaction network, efforts to refine it by removing kinetically infeasible reactions, and important reactions predicted by the network. Further, we describe initial work to use this reaction network to generate 3D kinetic models.
The newly formed Center for High Precision Patterning Science (CHiPPS) pursues a holistic approach to patterning science by studying the fundamentals of relevant interactions of light and matter and proposing co-designed materials and processes for precision patterning such as sequence defined and/or structured hybrid photoresists, molecular-level control of solvation steps, self-assembling materials for low-impact stochastics and molecularly precise and selective pattern transfer. The center leverages a world class EUV patterning research facility together with unique X-ray characterization built at the Advanced Light Source (ALS).
In this presentation we will introduce the center’s overall efforts in high precision patterning science and, in particular, we will put emphasis on an approach that employs novel self-assembling, hierarchical materials to heal the adverse stochastic effects on EUV photoresists and to enable pattern transfer methods with atomic or molecular precision.
Determination of both the identity and quantity of species desorbing from photoresists during exposure at any
wavelength - 248nm, 193nm and EUV - has proved to be very challenging, adding considerable uncertainty to the
evaluation of risks posed by specific photoresists to exposure tool optics. Measurements using a variety of techniques for
gas detection and solid film analysis have been reported but analytical results have not in general been easy to compare
or even in apparent agreement, in part due to difficulties in establishing absolute calibrations. In this work we describe
two measurement methods that can be used for any exposure wavelength, and show that they provide self-consistent
quantitative outgassing data for 2 all-organic and 2 Si-containing 193 nm resists. The first method, based upon gas
collection, uses two primary chromatographic techniques. Organic products containing C, S and Si are determined by
collection of vapors emitted during exposure in a cold trap and analysis by Gas Chromatography-Flame Ionization
Detector-Pulsed Flame Photometric Detector-Mass Spectrometry (GC-FID-PFPD-MS). Inorganic products such as SO2
are identified by adsorbent bed with analysis by Gas Particle-Ion Chromatography (GP-IC). The calibration procedure
used provides reasonable accuracy without exhaustive effort. The second method analyzes the elemental concentrations
in resist films before and after exposure by secondary ion mass spectrometry technique (SIMS), which requires only
knowledge of the resist compositions to be quantitative. The extent of outgassing of C and S determined by the two
methods is in good agreement for all 4 resists, especially when taking their fundamentally different characters into
account. Overall, the gas collection techniques yielded systematically lower outgassing numbers than did SIMS, and the
origins of the spread in values, which likely bracket the true values, as well as detection limits will be discussed. The
data for Si were found to differ significantly, however, and we show that the discrepancy is due to photo-induced
reactions at the polymer surface with the gas atmosphere present above the resist during exposure. For example,
photolytic oxidation of the C-Si bonds in air causes volatile Si-containing products to be formed from an otherwise stable
polymer, showing it is important to take the gas environment during exposure into account when designing resist
polymers for low Si outgassing.
A new type of chrome-on-glass (COG) photomask defect was observed in 2006. Absorber material migrated into vias on
dark field masks, partially obscuring the incident 193nm light and thereby causing the imaged photoresist to be
underexposed. Through detailed characterization of new and defective photomasks and their histories it was determined
that the migration is not caused by any unusual line events or faulty mask handling procedures. Rather, it is an inevitable
result of mask use under specific conditions. Four essential elements have been identified: the presence of Cr, 193nm
light exposure, charge, and water vapor and their roles elucidated through modeling studies and existing literature. We
have reproduced Cr migration in the laboratory, demonstrating that these four elements are necessary and sufficient for
this type of defect to occur. The only way to avoid Cr migration is to avoid reactions with water vapor.
UV-curable resist formulations for nanoimprint must satisfy many requirements for viscosity, volatility, curing
rate, cohesion of the cured material and release from the template in addition to being successfully imprintable. In this
paper we describe studies of several vinyl ether resist systems. Although all resist formulations have low viscosity, low
volatility and fast curing rate, significant variations in mechanical, fracture energy properties, fracture behaviors and
cured film roughness with resist compositions are found. The results show the addition of reactive diluent to resist can
lead to low fracture energy and low cured film roughness, consistent with significant control of the cured resist plasticity.
Advanced immersion lithography utilizes higher numerical aperture (NA) stepper lenses resulting in higher angles of
light illumination through photomasks. Transmission in conventional pellicles (830 nm thickness) is generally
maximized at 0 degree illumination and decreases significantly at the higher angles. Most pellicle suppliers have
developed thinner pellicle membranes (~280 nm) which allow considerably improved transmission of light at angles up
to 20 degrees. In addition, aluminum frames have been shortened, potentially allowing inspection closer to the inside of
the frame and reduced mask flatness distortion upon pellicle mount. Suppliers have also developed advanced adhesives
which reduce outgassing even beyond the low levels obtained with current 45 nm pellicles. In this paper, advanced
immersion pellicles from several suppliers are evaluated and compared with conventional 45 nm pellicles for the
following quality parameters: physical durability, foreign material, ease of demounting and glue removal, chemical
outgassing, mask flatness distortion and susceptibility to radiation damage. Improvements in mask inspection and
pellicle optical transmission at higher incident angles are also evaluated and are discussed.
UV-curable nanoimprint resist characteristics and performance are key to controlling resist-related defects formed during
template removal due to cohesive failure and strong resist-template adhesion. The debonding process is governed by
both the chemical bonds that form between the template and the resist during cure, and by the structure of the resist itself
which determines its elastic-plastic response under load. To gain insight to contributions from resist composition to the
debonding process we examine the connection between mechanical and chemical properties of a family of methacrylate
polyfunctionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (mPSS) containing resists to their adhesion to fluoroalkyl silane
release layers. We also survey debonding of one of the mPSS formulations, an acrylate formulation and a vinyl ether
formulation from as series of metal oxide and metal nitride release layers. The results show that while intrinsic storage
modulus of a cured material is important, interfacial segregation of reactants in fluid resists can influence adhesive
properties as well. The metal-containing release layers are shown to have generally much lower adhesion to cured resists
than does a fluoroalkyl silane release layer. They present a useful alternative for template release treatments.
UV curable resist formulations for nanoimprint must satisfy criteria for cure rate, volatility, viscosity, cohesion of the
cured material and release from the template in addition to being successfully imprintable. We describe an investigation
of the properties of a series of formulations comprising polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane and selected diluents as
candidates for imprintable dielectrics. Although all have low viscosity and volatility and are successfully imprinted,
significant variations in cure rate, mechanical and adhesion properties with resist composition are found. The trends
observed are not all predictable from the literature, indicating that formulation optimization for this application requires a
focus on the fundamentals of both materials and processes.
Cationic curing of vinyl ethers for step-and-flash nanoimprint lithography is described. Photochemical acid generators for use in the vinyl ether formulation were carefully selected on the basis of their solubility in neat lipophilic vinyl ether. Our favorite acid generators include diphenyltolylsulfonium triflate, CGI261, CGI1905, CGI1906, and CGI1907. The CGI1900 series is sensitive to i-line irradiation while the former two can be sensitized to 365 nm radiation by adding 9-anthracenemethanol. Phenothiazine is also an effective i-line sensitizer of the sulfonium salt. A major problem associated with the vinyl ether curing material is poor storage stability and the formulation rapidly solidifies at room temperature. However, it has been found that anthracenemethanol can stabilize the sulfonium salt and CGI formulations against the aging. Phenothiazine extends the shelf life of the sulfonium salt system but violently reacts with the CGI PAGs. Volatility of the vinyl ethers was measured by thermogravimetric analysis at room temperature. Photochemical curing of the formulations was investigated by FT-IR and also by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) equipped with a UV lamp. The photo-DSC analysis was particularly useful in ascertaining the cure kinetics and the efficacy of the sensitization. Preliminary imprint experiments successfully printed 50 nm dense features.
We examine the consequences of 193 nm photochemistry of air and water on resist compositions during exposure. The analysis uses a detailed quantitative kinetic model based on available literature mechanistic data and constructed with in-house simulation tools. In conventional 193 nm lithography, both oxidation of the resist polymer due to the UV photolysis of molecular oxygen, and film interaction with strong acids, formed by photo-oxidation of nitrogen and sulfur species in ambient air, have been proposed to lead to degraded resist imaging. We assess the extent to which such reactions can occur under typical lithographic process conditions, and find that while oxidation is minimal, acid deposition into the top of the resist film is significant and can spread over distances of millimeters. Immersion lithography using 193 nm radiation utilizes a layer of highly purified, degassed water as an index-matching fluid. When water is exposed to 193 nm light, short-lived chemical intermediates are produced by two pathways, neutral and ionic. A quantitative evaluation of this photochemistry during lithographic immersion exposure shows that neither type of intermediate nor photolyzed, leached photoacid generator molecules lead to significant water composition changes, so resist impacts are not likely to be marked. Organic immersion fluids may undergo significant photolysis, however there are insufficient experimental data to assess any potential impacts at this time.
The origins of defects in lithographic stencils fabricated by the UV-cure nanoimprint technique include fundamental surface interactions between template and resist in addition to the presence of particles and contaminants. Repeated, molecularly clean separations of the template from the newly cured resist is a requirement, yet rather little is understood about the separation process or underlying interfacial physics and chemistry. We have investigated the chemical and physical interactions of several model acrylate nanoimprint resist formulations cured in contact with clean and release-treated quartz surfaces, then separated from them. The results show that fracture energies are resist formulation-dependent, that the resist-release layer systems studied are not chemically stable and that release process is more complex than simple fracture at a glass-organic interface.
Exposure of photoresists to ultraviolet light results in outgassing of species that have the potential to contaminate surrounding optical surfaces. Of particular concern are silicon-containing products which cannot be cleaned and permanently detune optical coatings. Collection and identification of those species and quantification of the amounts formed is a difficult analytical problem because of the number and variety of products. We describe a general methodology for determining acidolytic decomposition pathways and absolute elemental composition changes induced in photoresists during exposure. Two silicon-containing 193 nm resists that differ in the mode of attachment of trimethylsilyl to the polymer have been investigated. Elemental abundances are measured in post-apply baked, exposed and post-expose baked films by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), thus probing volatile product formation from all photochemical and thermal decomposition pathways. Complementary data on primary thermal acidolytic deprotection pathways during post-exposure bake are obtained by mass spectrometry, enabling SIMS elemental abundance changes to be interpreted. The results show that decomposition of both the polymer protecting groups through room temperature acidolysis and the photoacid generator by photolysis lead to volatile product formation during exposure. Silicon bound through oxygen is acid labile while silicon bound through carbon is not, resulting in very low to no silicon outgassing from the latter polymer. Sulfur-containing products formed from PAGs outgas in significant amounts from the photoresists investigated, supporting recent mass spectrometric observations of sulfur outgassing by R. Kunz and coworkers.
Critical lithographic dimensions will soon place particularly severe demands on the performance of chemically amplified (CA) resists. Although Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) and 193 nm (immersion interferometric) lithographic results have demonstrated half pitch imaging down to 35 nm there is nonetheless a concern that image blur due to acid diffusion will begin to seriously impact the utility of CA photoresists. Previously we demonstrated that low activation energy resists and E-Beam lithography can be used to print line/space arrays with resolution approaching 20 nm. We described the factors impacting the reactivity of ketal/pHOST based resists and compared the attainable resolution under different processing conditions. In this report we describe studies on acid diffusion emphasizing the role of water in low Ea systems. We also discuss methods for the control of water absorption in low Ea resists.
The introduction of an immersion fluid in contact with the resist-coated substrate is, from the perspective of the resist material, a significant departure from the conventional lithographic process. The impact of this modification on the lithographic imaging materials is as yet only poorly characterized. We report the results of studies aimed at an improved understanding of how immersion in water during exposure influences the functional properties of films of lithographic materials. We have evaluated the water permeability of candidate immersion topcoat materials; the role of immersion topcoat materials in reducing airborne contamination and water-resist interactions; the impact of water immersion on image blur in chemically amplified resists; and high-resolution imaging of candidate immersion resist materials under conditions of poor aerial image contrast. Analytical techniques such as QCM and reflectance analysis of thin films, DUV interferometric immersion lithography, and trace organic analysis are applied in this work.
KEYWORDS: Polarization, Photomasks, Diffraction, Birefringence, System on a chip, Lithography, Optical proximity correction, Image processing, Modulation transfer functions, Thin films
Many hitherto small effects will become numerically significant in lithography at 70nm and below. The simple assumptions of scalar imaging and uniformly-polarized sources will no longer be tenable. Contrast losses in the resist (e.g. by diffusion) will become appreciable. In addition, the elements of 157nm lenses will be intrinsically polarizing due to spatial dispersion in CaF2, and in general lenses will exhibit residual polarization aberrations. We show here that these effects can be accounted for in a fast "sum-of-coherent-systems" (SOCS) algorithm that is suitable for model-based optical proximity correction (MBOPC). First, we cast the classic equations of vector image formation in a new form that explicitly distinguishes scalar and vector field terms. Lens birefringence is then added to the model; in doing so we take into account the classic phenomenon of double refraction, wherein a given ray splits into two rays each time it passes through an element. In principle, each incident ray then gives rise to an extended family of rays in the exit pupil. However, we show that this coherent set of rays can be merged into a single plane-wave component of the image, allowing a Jones matrix pupil to be defined. Once the vector imaging equations are modified to accommodate customized polarization distributions in the source as well as matrix pupils in the lens, we show that tractable SOCS kernels can be obtained under a generalization of the thin-mask approximation. Such models can be extended to include non-optical effects like resist blur, along with empirical modeling terms. We also discuss computational efficiencies that can be achieved when calculating SOCS kernels, for example by iteratively refining kernels calculated from a reduced basis, and by exploiting system symmetry (radial, dipole, or quadrupole).
We address in this report a set of key questions tied to the implementation of liquid immersion lithography, from the perspective of the resist materials. We discuss the broad question of whether chemically amplified resists are capable of achieving the spatial resolution that ultimately will be required for the most advanced immersion scenario. Initial studies undertaken using model 193 nm resist materials provide some insight into how an aqueous liquid immersion process can affect the resist material.
A wide range of phenomenological nonlinear dissolution behaviors has often been noted for real resist systems but no comprehensive framework has yet been proposed that explains the underlying physical phenomena and connects them to resist composition. We present a taxonomy of dissolution processes in representative resist copolymers measured using quartz crystal microbalance frequency-resistance analysis and optical reflectance measurements. The underlying physical and chemical processes leading to the observed behaviors are identified using a detailed chemical kinetics implementation of the critical ionization model for resist polymer dissolution.
Through simulation we examine the predicted resist images for 50- and 80-nm contacts in the presence of three sources of fluctuations: those associated with random photon absorption sites, those associated with dose statistics, and those associated with resist chemistry. Photon absorption simulations were done using simple optics theory or Monte Carlo techniques. These absorption maps were converted into an initial map of photoacid concentration and a realistic PEB model was used to obtain the developable latent image. A new dissolution model was used to estimate the final resist profile, and image analysis routines were used to extract the centroid position jitter, diameter fluctuations, and edge roughness statistics. The simulations show that each source of fluctuation can be significant, and we propose an experiment that will detect the presence of shot noise and partially separate the three fluctuation sources.
The dissolution of exposed regions of polymeric resists in aqueous base to form a pattern is a complex reactive process, and is usually described only empirically. It has recently been proposed that a critical level of ionization is required for a polymer chain to move from the film into solution, and we use this model as a framework for a simple reaction scheme that describes the transformation of a polymer chain from an unsolvated form into a solvated one. Simulations of the dissolution process are used to predict the dose dependence of thickness loss, resist contrast and line shapes as a function of local extent of polymer deprotection in p-tert-butyloxycarbonyloxystyrene (PTBOCST) chemically amplified positive tone photoresist, and examine local composition and kinetics factors that lead to roughening. The results show that nonlinearities inherent in the dissolution kinetics are responsible for resist imaging. The simulations can be used to define a simple functional form for thickness loss as a function of dose, providing a physically-based alternative to phenomenological dissolution models for prediction of developed profiles from calculated latent images. The extendability of the approach to copolymers and to systems that undergo significant gellation is discussed.
The chemically amplified resist concept, first described two decades past and originally targeted for the 1000 nm device generation, has proved to have remarkable versatility. The semiconductor industry has come to rely on the properties of CA resists to achieve high resolution, high aspect ratio imaging accompanied by the high throughput that stems from their catalytic imaging mechanism. As the industry maps the evolution of lithographic technology to the 20 nm regime, it is appropriate to review the factors that control the performance of CA resists, and examine whether the traditional evolutionary path of materials refinement will provide materials capable of supporting device manufacturing at those dimensions. The impacts of image blur, line-edge roughness and shot noise on the ability to image CA resists at nanoscale dimensions will be discussed.
Progress in photolithograpy depends upon the availability of photoresists capable of printing increasingly fine features. New resist materials are constantly in demand, for instance to enable the use of sources and optics operating at shorter wavelengths. For the development of new resists, it is very valuable to have a quantitative metric for the spatial resolution of the photoresist itself. The spatial resolution of an imaging optical system is generally described by a line spread function or, equivalently by its Fourier transform, the modulation transfer function. We apply the formalism of a line spread function to the photoresist film and show that given a model for the development process, which transforms the continuous-valued latent image to a binary-valued relief profile, the modulation transfer function can be deduced from measurements of linewidth vs. dose for sinusoidal exposures made by 2-beam interferometric lithography. An important advantage of the interferometric technique is that it does not require highly optimized, and thus expensive, optics for the wavelength under investigation. This methodology has been applied to commercial and experimental photoresist materials. As an example, the experimental results show that the line spread function of the deep-UV resist UVII-HS has a full width at half maximum of approximately 50 nm.
Recent advances have enabled exposure tool manufacturers to ship tools with numerical aperture (NA) = 0.8, and to envision optics with even larger NA. Thus the lithography community must grapple with images formed by oblique waves close to the Brewster angle. (For a typical chemically amplified resist with index of refraction n = 1.7, the Brewster angle is 59°, corresponding to NA = 0.86.) In this paper we will consider some of the surprising phenomena that occur at such high NA. Both vector diffraction simulation results and experimental results from the IBM interferometric lithography apparatus will be discussed. One of the most interesting modeling predictions is that, near the Brewster angle, the swing curve for transverse magnetic (TM) polarization is much smaller than normal, while the swing curve for transverse electric (TE) polarization is much larger than normal, and experimental measurements verify this prediction. Special image cross sections using the Flagello decoration method will also demonstrate the loss of TM image contrast due to vector imaging effects.
Recent advances have enabled exposure tool manufacturers to ship tools with Numerical Aperture (NA) equals 0.8, and to envision optics with even larger NA. Thus the lithography community must grapple with images formed by oblique waves close to Brewster's angle. (For a typical chemically amplified resist with index of refraction n equals 1.7, Brewster's angle is 59 degree(s), corresponding to NA equals 0.86.) This paper will consider some of the surprising phenomena that occur at such high NA. Both vector diffraction simulation results and experimental results from the IBM interferometric lithography apparatus will be discussed. One of the most interesting modeling predictions is that, near Brewster's angle, the swing curve for TM polarization is much smaller than normal, while the swing curve for TE polarization is much larger than normal, and experimental measurements verify this prediction. Special image cross sections using the Flagello decoration method will also demonstrate the loss of TM image contrast due to vector imaging effects.
We have extended the recent work on high numerical aperture (NA) effects in novolac photoresists to investigate the influences of s- and p-polarization at Brewster's angle on the final developable image of a chemically amplified (CA) resist. Using our interferometric lithography tool, resist films (Shipley UVII-HS) were exposed using either s- or p-polarization at both Brewster's angle (146 nm pitch), and at a small angle of incidence (400 nm pitch), where polarization effects are considered negligible. Cleaved and decorated samples were analyzed with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) which provides a measure of the spatial distribution of energy deposition in the film convolved with the image transformation that occurs during PEB. The experimental images were compared to simulated latent images using a PEB model that mimics UVII-HS behavior and a more simplified model, a blurred acid image. Our results indicate that the degraded aerial image contrast at high NA caused by the absence of an antireflection coating (ARC) leads to complex developable images. This degraded contrast can increase line-edge roughness, and affect critical dimension variation. This work reveals the need to understand the details of resist response to high NA aerial images to predict structures, and the importance of a well-designed ARC to maintain control over image formation.
If EUV lithography is to be inserted at the 65-nm node of the 2001 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, beta-tool resists must be ready in 2004. These resists should print 35-65 nm lines on a 130-nm pitch with LER below 4 nm 3s. For throughput considerations, the sizing dose should be below 4 mJ/cm2. The VNL and EUV LLC resist development program has measured the resolution, LER, and sizing dose of approximately 60 ESCAP photoresists with the 10X exposure tools at Sandia National Laboratories. The NA of these tools is 0.088, and every resist measured would support the beta-tool resolution requirement if the resolution scales with NA as predicted by optics. 50-nm dense lines have been printed with monopole off-axis illumination, but 35-nm resolution on a 130-nm pitch remains to be demonstrated. Only one photoresist met the LER specification, but its sizing dose of 22 mJ/cm2 is over five times too large. The power spectral density of the roughness of every resist has a Lorentzian line shape, and most of the roughness comes from frequencies within the resolution of the exposure tools. This suggests a strong contribution from mask and optics, but more work needs to be done to determine the source of the roughness. Many resists have sizing doses below the 4 mJ/cm2 target, and neither resolution nor LER degrades with decreasing sizing dose, suggesting that shot noise is not yet affecting the results. The best overall resist resolved 80-nm dense lines with 5.3 nm 3s LER on 100-nm dense lines at a sizing dose of 3.2 mJ/cm2. Thus, it comes close to, but does not quite meet, the beta-tool resist targets.
The analysis of vapors desorbing from resist films during processing provides important information on impurity content, loss of resist components, and available decomposition pathways that complements data obtained by film composition studies. We have constructed an instrument for in-situ sampling and identification of volatiles from both bulk polymers and cast films by tandem mass spectrometry. We have used this instrument to identify volatile products from thermal and acid catalyzed deprotection of p-(t- butyloxycarbonyloxy)styrene (PTBOCST) to form p-hydroxystyrene (PHOST). The results show that the two reaction pathways have markedly different chemistry, and that the generally accepted deprotection mechanism oversimplifies what is actually happening in the film.
The ultimate feature size achievable using a chemically amplified resist is determined by chemical and physical processes occurring during the post-exposure bake process. Using a combined experimental-modelling procedure we previously have developed a physically accurate, predictive description of coupled deprotection and diffusion in poly(p- tert-butyloxycar-bonyloxystyrene) (PTBOCST) resist containing a diaryliodonium perfluorobutanesulfonate salt as photoacid generator (PAG). In the present work we extend that study to quantify the impact of anion size and of added base on resist reaction diffusion kinetics. Our results show that both short and long range mobility of the PAG anion influence image spreading; the small triflate counterion leads to acid diffusion larger by a factor of 9 - 70 than that observed with the larger perfluoro-butanesulfonate counterion. The addition of tetra-n-butylammonium hydroxide leads to an overall suppression of image spreading in the exposed resist. This effect can be analyzed quantitatively using a proportional neutralization model, which reveals that base addition can lead to an overall sharpening of the developable latent image of deprotection even in the absence of acid diffusion.
The detailed structure of the 3D relief image formed upon processing a chemically amplified (CA) resist film is the result of a complex interplay of the projected optical image, the resist optical and photochemical properties, and the chemistry and physics of post-exposure thermal processing. During post-expose heating,the initial latent image of photogenerated acid is transformed into a developable chemical latent image of deprotected polymer whose form is governed by the kinetics of both a thermally- activated chemical deprotection reaction and the diffusion of photo-generated acid within the polymer film. WHile there have been recent advances in characterizing the chemistry and kinetics of deprotection in CA resist films, at present our fundamental quantitative understanding of photo-acid diffusion remains poor.
Interferometric lithography affords the unique ability to independently control dose, pitch and aerial image contrast during photolithographic exposure. In this report, we describe the use of a deep-UV interferometric lithography exposure tool to study the impact of aerial image contrast on resists imaging properties. A wide range of high resolution resists materials was surveyed, including positive- and negative-tone systems, chemically amplified and conventional diazonaphthoquinone imagining chemistries, and aqueous- and solvent-developed systems. In all cases, resist line- edge roughness was observed to increase as aerial image contrast was decreased, though the precise behavior varied with resist material. Polymer molecular weight was systematically varied with resists materia. Polymer molecular weight was systematically varied in a negative- tone chemically amplified resist formulation. The results indicate that molecular weight is a significant factor influencing the magnitude and type of line-edge roughness at low aerial image contrast.
The 'developable' chemical image generated in chemically amplified DUV resists is only indirectly related to the photochemical image generated on exposure. As a consequence the factors which ultimately affect the performance of the resist are determined by the thermally activated reactions occurring after the exposure step. For this reason it is important to understand the details of this chemistry in order to understand the effects that changes in formulation and process conditions have on factors such as linewidth and process latitude. In this report we describe studies on the deprotection reactions which occur in films of UVIIHS during the post exposure bake step. Experimentally measured deprotection rate data are compared to simulations employing a stochastic mechanism simulator.
Deep-UV chemically amplified (CA) resists are among the leading candidates for the manufacture of semiconductors at 0.25 micron ground rules. In systems of this type, a latent image of photogenerated acid is produced in the resist film on pattern-wise exposure to UV light. The subsequent post-exposure bake (PEB) step drives a thermal reaction, causing a change in the aqueous base solubility of the resist in the exposed regions. Due to the fact that the photochemical and thermal images are decoupled it is important to understand the details of the resist thermal chemistry in order to understand how process conditions affect properties such as linewidth control and resolution. We describe here in-situ, high data-rate, accurate measurements of the chemical kinetics that occur in CA resists during post-exposure bake (PEB). The experimental methodology employs IR or UV spectroscopic measurement under carefully controlled isothermal conditions to determine resist film composition as a function of time. The acid-catalyzed deprotection reactions of two candidate deep-UV resist materials, poly(t-butoxy carbony-loxystyrene)(PTBOC) and poly(t-butyl methacrylate)(PTBMA), were characterized. We propose a model for the acidolysis reactions for both polymer systems and extract coefficients using a stochastic kinetics simulator. This model explicitly addresses the effects of photo-acid strength on the efficiency of the deprotection step. Excellent agreement between the model and experimental data is obtained. The derived rate coefficients are shown to be useful for quantitative prediction of the chemical kinetics of related resist systems. Mechanistic implications of the values of the derived rate coefficients are discussed. The influence of chemical kinetics on the resist's lithographic properties is examined.
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