SNM: Three-Color Photolithography for Scalable, Large-Area, Low-Cost Nanomanufacturing

在更大的范围内创造具有更精细功能的设备的能力，对于成熟行业和新兴行业的技术创新都至关重要。在半导体工业中，通过使用波长更短的光来产生电路图案，在增加电路密度方面取得了进展，但这种方法很昂贵，进一步的改进已经接近极限。这个可扩展纳米制造（SNM）项目将使用三束不同波长的可见光来生产纳米级特征，其分辨率提高了生产高密度集成电路所需的分辨率。由于可见光的生产、传播和操作成本低廉，该方法有望将尖端纳米制造的成本降低10倍或更多。该项目团队将与主要工业开发商和最终用户合作，将技术转化为实践，为美国在可扩展纳米制造方面的竞争力提供重大推动。这项技术将生产的越来越紧凑和强大的设备有可能影响几乎所有可以想象的技术方面和我们社会的每一个成员。项目团队已经研究并证明了两色光刻方法，这使得使用可见光创建高分辨率特征成为可能。这些技术的基础是使用一种颜色的光来启动化学反应，而使用另一种颜色来抑制化学反应。然而，这些方法还不能产生满足半导体路线图下一个节点所需的分辨率。双色方法的绊脚石是化学的起始与失活相竞争。提议的三色方法规避了这个问题。一种颜色的光预先激活化学反应，第二种颜色的光使分子失效，第三种颜色的光将预先激活的分子转化为激活的分子，然后进行化学反应。该方法为实现二维和三维可扩展纳米制造的亚20纳米分辨率提供了可行的途径。项目团队结合了光刻、光化学、光谱学和图案转移方面的专业知识来实现这一愿景。该团队将与在商业光刻胶，光刻工具组件和光刻模拟方法方面具有专业知识的工业合作者密切合作，以确保所使用的研究方法和材料与半导体行业和其他消费产品行业的需求和工艺相兼容。

The ability to create devices with finer features over larger areas is crucial to technological innovation in both mature and emerging industries. In the semiconductor industry, progress in increasing circuit density has been maintained by using light of ever shorter wavelengths to produce circuit patterns, but this method is expensive and further improvements are nearing their limit. This Scalable NanoManufacturing (SNM) project will use three beams of visible light of different wavelengths to produce nanoscale features with the improved resolution required to produce high density integrated circuits. Because visible light is inexpensive to produce, propagate and manipulate, the method promises to lower the cost of cutting-edge nanomanufacturing by a factor of 10 or more. The project team will collaborate with major industrial developers and end-users to transfer the technology to practice, providing a major boost to American competitiveness in scalable nanomanufacturing. The ever more compact and powerful devices that this technology will produce have the potential to impact virtually every imaginable aspect of technology and every member of our society.The project team has researched and proven 2-color approaches to photolithography that have made possible the creation of high-resolution features using visible light. The basis of these techniques is that one color of light is used to initiate chemistry and a second color is used to inhibit it. However, these methods are not yet capable of producing the resolution needed to satisfy the requirements of the next node of the Semiconductor Roadmap. The stumbling block for 2-color approaches has been that initiation of chemistry competes with deactivation. The proposed 3-color approaches circumvent this problem. One color of light pre-activates chemistry, a second color of light deactivates the molecules, and a third color of light transforms pre-activated molecules into activated molecules that then undergo chemistry. This approach provides a viable path to attaining sub-20-nm resolution for scalable nanomanufacturing in 2 and 3 dimensions. The project team combines expertise in photolithography, photochemistry, spectroscopy and pattern transfer to realize this vision. The team will work closely with industrial collaborators who have expertise in commercial photoresists, photolithographic tool components and photolithographic simulation methods to ensure that the research methods and materials used are compatible with the needs and processes of the semiconductor industry and other consumer product industries.