Invited Paper NS+NC-ThA1
Pattern Error Correction and Density Multiplication by Lithographically Guided Self Assembly

Thursday, October 23, 2008, 2:00 pm, Room 311

Patterned media for storage applications at densities beyond 1Tb/in² requires fabrication of periodic patterns at 27nm full pitch and smaller. Templating patterns at these dimensions is particularly challenging when considering the stringent quality restrictions imposed by storage applications in terms of feature size distribution, line edge roughness, placement and long-range ordering. We present here a guided self-assembly approach that combines e-beam lithography with block copolymer self-assembly. E-beam lithography is used to pre-pattern a guiding substrate defining features with registration and long-range orientational and translational order. A block copolymer film is applied on top of the guiding pattern. The uniformity of the self-assembled features effectively corrects noise and non-uniformities introduced by the e-beam and the e-beam resist. We use image processing to quantify the pattern quality rectification achieved by the block copolymer. We also use this guided self-assembly approach as a pattern density multiplier. The self-assembled pattern can be used to multiply the density of e-beam features by at least a factor of four. This density multiplication approach enables the possibility to pattern features at resolutions not accessible by state-of-the-art e-beam lithography but still taking full advantage of its registration and long-range ordering properties.