Paper
17 March 2015 H2 plasma and neutral beam treatment of EUV photoresist
P. De Schepper, D. Marinov, Z. el Otell, E. Altamirano-Sánchez, J.-F. de Marneffe, S. De Gendt, N. St. J. Braithwaite
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Abstract
Optical lithography has given the semiconductor industry the chance to follow Moore’s law in scaling the transistor dimensions and consequently stacking them in a more dense way. However, for present sub 20 nm nanoscale patterns, which are reaching molecular dimensions; controlling the line edge and width roughness (LER/LWR) has become a key challenge. One way of reducing the roughness at photoresist level is the exposure of the organic substrate to a hydrogen plasma process in a post lithography step. Unfortunately, to this day, no clear understanding of the interaction of various plasma parameters with EUV resist substrates has been reported. In this work, two EUV resist platforms were exposed to an H2 plasma environment and H2 energetic neutrals only, by using a customized plasma reactor. The surface and bulk modifications of the photoresists have been evaluated by spectroscopic ellipsometry, Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy.
© (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
P. De Schepper, D. Marinov, Z. el Otell, E. Altamirano-Sánchez, J.-F. de Marneffe, S. De Gendt, and N. St. J. Braithwaite "H2 plasma and neutral beam treatment of EUV photoresist", Proc. SPIE 9428, Advanced Etch Technology for Nanopatterning IV, 94280C (17 March 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2085679
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KEYWORDS
Plasma

Photoresist materials

Extreme ultraviolet lithography

Vacuum ultraviolet

Electrodes

Absorption

Infrared spectroscopy

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