Adamantane-based molecular glass resist for 193-nm lithography and beyond

The adamantane-based molecular glass resist were studied its functional capability for lithography process in this work. GR-5 represented adamantane-based molecular glass resist were described as compared with the conventional polymer for 193 nm lithography. Low molecular weight which is one of the features of the molecular glass resist are expected to reduce the line width roughness (LWR) and the line edge roughness (LER). We evaluated the surface roughness (Ra; arithmetic mean departures of roughness profile from the mean line) by using the atomic force microscopy (AFM) instead. GR-5 has actually lower Ra value of 0.345 nm after the exposure and the development process. As the result of the confirmation of the GR-5's performance between the refractive index (n) and transparency (T), although n value stood on over 1.8, T value was less than 30% at 193 nm wave length. It is not likely to solve the higher refractive index and the higher transparency simultaneously. Further the scope of the adamantane-based molecular glass resist to apply for the EUV lithograph was found.