Organosilicate Polymer E-Beam Resists with High Resolution, Sensitivity and Stability

Published

February 28, 2013

Author(s)

Christopher Soles, Richard Kasica, Hae-Jeong Lee, Jae H. Sim, Sung-Il Lee, Ki-Bum Kim, Hyun-Mi Kim, Do Y. Yoon

Abstract

Hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) is an attractive electron-beam (e-beam) resist for sub-20 nm lithography due to its high resolution, excellent line-edge-roughness (LER), and good plasma etch resistance. However, the sensitivity and long-term stability of HSQ need to be significantly improved to have HSQ resists adopted for volume manufacturing. Here we develop novel organosilicate e-beam resists with improved e-beam sensitivity and stability as an alternative to HSQ resists. Copolymers of norbornene ethyltrimethoxysilane (NETMS) with 1,2-bis(triethoxysilyl)ethane, synthesized via acidcatalyzed sol-gel reactions, show excellent e-beam sensitivity with ca. a six-fold reduction in the critical dose as compared with HSQ but poor LER characteristics. Terpolymers are then synthesized using pchloromethylphenyl trimethoxysilane (p-CMPTMS), NETMS and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), which exhibit significant improvement in sensitivity as compared with previously reported materials, together with high resolution patterns and long-term stability. High resolution patterns of features as small as 20 nm with excellent LER are successfully fabricated employing organosilicate terpolymers using a 100 keV e-beam. The dose for patterning 20 nm lines is reduced from 4000 μC/cm2 for HSQ to 900 μC/cm2 for an optimized terpolymer resist. FT-IR measurements suggest that the main reason for the increased e-beam sensitivity is chain transfer reaction between the norbornene moieties, which provide an efficient cross-linking mechanism by the e-beam generated radicals.

Citation

Applied Organometallic Chemistry

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1002/aoc.2985

Local Download

Keywords

lithography, pattering, electron beam, organosilicate, nanostructure

Citation

Soles, C. , Kasica, R. , Lee, H. , Sim, J. , Lee, S. , Kim, K. , Kim, H. and Yoon, D. (2013), Organosilicate Polymer E-Beam Resists with High Resolution, Sensitivity and Stability, Applied Organometallic Chemistry, [online], https://doi.org/10.1002/aoc.2985, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=913490 (Accessed October 8, 2025)