AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Plasma Science and Technology Thursday Sessions
       Session PS2-ThM

Paper PS2-ThM3
Morphological and Chemical Evolution of Model Resist Polymers for Plasma/Energetic Beam Templating Materials*

Thursday, November 16, 2006, 8:40 am, Room 2011

Session: Plasmas and Polymers
Presenter: T. Kwon, University of Maryland
Authors: R. Phaneuf, University of Maryland
T. Kwon, University of Maryland
R.L. Bruce, University of Maryland
S. Engelmann, University of Maryland
G.S. Oehrlein, University of Maryland
B. Long, University of Texas, Austin
G. Willson, University of Texas, Austin
D.B. Graves, University of California, Berkeley
D.G. Nest, University of California, Berkeley
M. Goldman, University of California, Berkeley
J. Vegh, University of California, Berkeley
A. Alizadeh, GE Electric Global Research Center
Correspondent: Click to Email
The control of the line edge / surface roughness induced by plasma etching, one of the essential process steps in IC fabrication, may ultimately limit the minimum critical dimensions obtainable in nanoscale-devices. This issue is thus crucial in the development of the new generation of organic mask materials for advanced lithographic techniques. In the work presented here we have investigated the evolution of surface roughness of five prototypical resists, polystyrene (PS), poly (4-methylstyrene), poly-@alpha@-methylstyrene (P@alpha@MS), poly-3-hydroxy-1adamantyl methacrylate (HAMA), and poly-3-hydroxy-1-adamantyl acrylate (HAdA), during inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching with O@sub 2@, with Ar, and with C@sub 4@F@sub 8@/90%Ar plasmas. Our AFM measurements show a strong correlation of the rate of roughening of these resists with type and position of chemical functional groups, the tendency toward chain scission vs. cross-linking in the presence of ionizing radiation, and with the composition of the etching gas. In particular, we find that for the C@sub 4@F@sub 8@/90%Ar plasma, poly (4-methylstyrene) shows the smallest surface roughness among all the samples, and HAMA the highest. We compare the morphological and chemical changes of these model resists under plasma etching to the extreme case of ion sputtering during Ar@super +@ beam bombardment. *Work supported by the National Science Foundation under NIRT, # CTS-0506988.