Molecular Glass Resists as High‐Resolution Patterning Materials

Abstract

The success of the semiconductor industry is based on the ability to fabricate hundreds of millions of devices on a single chip. In order to fulfill the ever‐shrinking feature sizes, the industry requires new patternable materials in order to operate in the sub‐50 nm regime. Molecular glass (MG) resists are a new type of patterning material that has gained considerable attention over the past few years. This Research News article describes the chemical and structural aspects of MGs as well as important concepts of MG resist design. We also highlight some of the recent advances in high‐resolution patterning capabilities with next‐generation imaging tools.

Crystallization of Organic Glasses: Effects of Polymer Additives on Bulk and Surface Crystal Growth in Amorphous Nifedipine

“…For many applications, amorphous solids are advantageous over crystals (1). While better known amorphous materials are inorganic (e.g., window glass), there is a growing interest in developing organic or molecular glasses as vehicles for delivering poorly soluble drugs (2), as photo-and electroactive materials (3,4) and as matrices for preserving proteins and cells (5). For an amorphous material, stability against crystallization is essential because crystallization negates its advantages.…”

Synthesis and characteristics of multi-aryl substituted molecular glasses bearing biphenyl core

“…The reaction was maintained at −78°C for 3 h and then stirred at room temperature for 2 h. The reaction was quenched by saturated NH 4 Cl solution, and a large amount of white solid was formed. The reaction mixture was filtrated and organic phase was dried over anhydrous MgSO 4 …”

“…Molecular glass resists such as polyphenol [8][9][10][11], calyx[n] arene [12][13][14][15], fullerene [16][17][18][19] and ladder cyclic molecule (noria) [20,21] are of great interest for its potential application for EUV resists. A series of tert-butyloxycarbonyl (t-Boc) protected C-4-hydroxyphenyl-calix [4]resorcinarene derivatives that produces 30 nm line space patterns under EUV conditions was developed by Chang and co-workers [22], and the first report on sub-50 nm features was obtained by a molecular glass resist using standard processing conditions. The high glass-transition temperature (T g ) of the ring structure was identified as a major factor that enabled high resolution for these calix [4]resorcinarene derivatives [23].…”

“…A series of tert-butyloxycarbonyl (t-Boc) protected C-4-hydroxyphenyl-calix [4]resorcinarene derivatives that produces 30 nm line space patterns under EUV conditions was developed by Chang and co-workers [22], and the first report on sub-50 nm features was obtained by a molecular glass resist using standard processing conditions. The high glass-transition temperature (T g ) of the ring structure was identified as a major factor that enabled high resolution for these calix [4]resorcinarene derivatives [23]. Shirota and coworkers have designed amorphous molecular glasses from ring and star-shaped molecules [24,25].…”

“…Organic low molar mass glasses have been widely studied and used as chare-transporting materials [1,3]. Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to molecular glasses used as high-resolution pattering materials in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to fulfill the ever-shrinking feature sizes in the sub-50 nm regime [4,5]. Molecular glasses have been explored to improve line edge roughness (LER) comparing to the conventional polymeric resists, whose performance issues was originating from chain entanglement, molecular size and composition distribution as well as acid diffusion control that hinders optimal lithographic performance [6,7].…”