Resistless EUV lithography: Photon-induced oxide patterning on silicon
In this work, we show the feasibility of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) patterning on an HF-treated silicon (100) surface in the absence of a photoresist. EUV lithography is the leading lithography technique in semiconductor manufacturing due to its high resolution and throughput, but future progress in resolution can be hampered because of the inherent limitations of the resists. We show that EUV photons can induce surface reactions on a partially hydrogen-terminated silicon surface and assist the growth of an oxide layer, which serves as an etch mask. This mechanism is different from the hydrogen desorption in scanning tunneling microscopy-based li-thography. We achieve silicon dioxide/silicon gratings with 75-nanometer half-pitch and 31-nanometer height, demonstrating the efficacy of the method and the feasibility of patterning with EUV lithography without the use of a photoresist. Further development of the resistless EUV lithography method can be a viable approach to nanometer-scale lithography by overcoming the inherent resolution and roughness limitations of photoresist materials.
Cite this item
Tseng, L.-T., Karadan, P., Kazazis, D., Constantinou, P. C., Stock, T. J. Z., Curson, N. J., Schofield, S. R., Muntwiler, M., Aeppli, G., & Ekinci, Y. (2023). Resistless EUV lithography: Photon-induced oxide patterning on silicon. Science Advances, 9(16), Article eadf5997. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf5997
Click Copy to copy the citation, or select the text manually.
WOS:000989548800009
2023-04-21
9
16
eadf5997
REVIEWED
EPFL