8 March 2024 Experimental characterization of model extreme ultraviolet resist materials
Oleg Kostko, Terry R. McAfee, Jonathan Han Son Ma, James M. Blackwell, Patrick P. Naulleau
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Resists are needed to advance extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. In EUV resists, due to the high energy of the incident photons, most of the chemistry arises from the emitted primary and secondary electrons and not the EUV photons themselves. Because the electrons are playing a leading role in EUV patterning, initiating chemical transformations, it is important to characterize their generation, transport, and energy distribution. In this work, we present several experimental techniques to probe model polymer materials to investigate the impact of specific chemical groups on critical resist properties: EUV absorption, electron emission, electron attenuation length (EAL), and energy distribution of emitted electrons. Total electron yield provides information on the conversion of absorbed EUV photons to electrons, and photoelectron spectroscopy provides information on energy distribution of generated electrons. The EAL reveals the distance that the electrons can travel in a resist film, which is related to the electron blur. Correlations between the obtained experimental values are discussed. We explore how different elements or functional groups change the yield, EAL, and energy distribution of emitted electrons, aiming to understand how to control the electron cascade.

© 2024 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
Oleg Kostko, Terry R. McAfee, Jonathan Han Son Ma, James M. Blackwell, and Patrick P. Naulleau "Experimental characterization of model extreme ultraviolet resist materials," Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials, and Metrology 23(1), 014602 (8 March 2024). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMM.23.1.014602
Received: 7 December 2023; Accepted: 12 February 2024; Published: 8 March 2024
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KEYWORDS
Electrons

Extreme ultraviolet

Polymers

Photons

Extreme ultraviolet lithography

Absorption

Signal attenuation

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