An investigation on "nano-swelling" phenomenon during resist dissolution using in situ high-speed atomic force microscopy

Julius Joseph Santillan; Toshiro Itani

doi:10.1117/12.2257835

5 April 2017 An investigation on "nano-swelling" phenomenon during resist dissolution using in situ high-speed atomic force microscopy

Julius Joseph Santillan, Toshiro Itani

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10146, Advances in Patterning Materials and Processes XXXIV; 101460C (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2257835
Event: SPIE Advanced Lithography, 2017, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

This work focuses on the application of a high-speed atomic force microscope (HS-AFM) for the in situ observation / quantification of the resist dissolution process. Specifically, this paper discusses on the existence of what the authors refer to as “nano-swelling” which occurs in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) exposed areas of a positive-tone chemically amplified resist, just before it dissolves into the aqueous tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) developer solution. In earlier experiments using typical EUVL resist materials (e.g. polyhydroxystyrene (PHS) polymer and hybrid PHS-methacryl polymer model resists), it was understood that nano-swelling is mainly material type-dependent. As shown in the investigations/results in this paper, nano-swelling has variations in the timing of occurrence and amount/size depending on the size of the dissolvable areas (i.e. larger dissolvable areas dissolve faster, swell more compared to smaller ones). Lastly, a comparison of surface analyses results of a resist pattern before, during, and after the occurrence of nano-swelling suggests the significant impact of these kinds of non-uniformities in the formation of line edge/line width roughness (LER/LWR).

Conference Presentation

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Julius Joseph Santillan and Toshiro Itani "An investigation on "nano-swelling" phenomenon during resist dissolution using in situ high-speed atomic force microscopy", Proc. SPIE 10146, Advances in Patterning Materials and Processes XXXIV, 101460C (5 April 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2257835

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