Examination of a simplified reaction-diffusion model for post-exposure bake of chemically amplified resists

Mark D. Smith; Chris A. Mack

doi:10.1117/12.436827

24 August 2001 Examination of a simplified reaction-diffusion model for post-exposure bake of chemically amplified resists

Mark D. Smith, Chris A. Mack

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4345, Advances in Resist Technology and Processing XVIII; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.436827
Event: 26th Annual International Symposium on Microlithography, 2001, Santa Clara, CA, United States

Abstract

For a chemically amplified resist (CAR), the simulation of the post exposure bake (PEB) process is computationally very expensive when compared with simulation of PEB for a conventional resist. The reason for the additional computational difficulty for a CAR is that the commonly accepted mechanism for acid-catalyzed deprotection of the polymer resin requires the acid to diffuse and react simultaneously. One approach to a more efficient simulation of PEB for a CAR is to decouple the reaction-diffusion model into a diffusion step followed by a reaction step. Although the decoupled approach is its accuracy compared with the original (coupled) reaction-diffusion PEB model. In this study, the reaction-diffusion model of the PEB process for a CAR is solved analytically for the case where the diffusivity of acid is constant and no base quencher is present in the resist formulation. This special case for PEB of a CAR allows a systematic investigation of the differences between coupled and decoupled reaction-diffusion models. It is shown that the dynamics of the PEB process predicted by the coupled reaction-diffusion models. It is shown that the dynamics of the PEB process predicted by the coupled reaction-diffusion model cannot be reproduced by a decoupled model. Specifically, the two models cannot be matched to predict the same dynamics for both short-time responses, such as the damping of standing wave corrugations in the resist profile, and long-time responses, such as the resist contribution to iso-dense bias or line-end shortening.

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Mark D. Smith and Chris A. Mack "Examination of a simplified reaction-diffusion model for post-exposure bake of chemically amplified resists", Proc. SPIE 4345, Advances in Resist Technology and Processing XVIII, (24 August 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.436827

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