Commercialization of a high performance SML series electron beam resist for nano lithography

用于纳米光刻的高性能 SML 系列电子束抗蚀剂的商业化

• 批准号: ST/I006196/1
• 负责人: Lucio Piccirillo
• 金额: $ 14.97万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2011 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FI006196%2F1
• 关键词: Commercialization; performance; SML; series; electron

Electron beam lithography (EBL) enables the fabrication of nano-scale structures via the patterning of a thin film resist with a narrow beam of electrons. A pattern is then transferred from this 'mask' onto or into a substrate via lift-off (metallization) or etching processes respectively. EBL is now a standard tool in the nanotechnology industry, and particularly in nanoelectronics. EBL machines can cost anywhere from ~£100K to over £2M (e.g. Vistec EBPG +5000), and the industry is broadly split into two categories: low voltage machines that operate at 30KV and below (cheap), and high voltage machines that operate at 100KV (very expensive). The main advantage of the expensive high voltage machines is that they are capable of patterning an electron beam resist into smaller features, and with higher aspect ratios than the low voltage systems. A new electron beam resist called SML series resist has been developed at the University of Manchester to obtain large aspect ratios using low acceleration voltages. As described above, typically, large aspect ratio structures can only be achieved using 100KV EBL machines. However, the vast majority of EBL machines in use are of the low voltage variety and so the ability to fabricate high aspect ratio structures is not accessible to the majority of the EBL community. The SML series resist overcomes this issue and enables the fabrication of very high aspect ratio structures using low voltage machines.

电子束光刻（EBL）能够通过用窄电子束图案化薄膜抗蚀剂来制造纳米级结构。然后分别通过剥离（金属化）或蚀刻工艺将图案从该“掩模”转移到衬底上或衬底中。EBL现在是纳米技术行业的标准工具，特别是在纳米电子学领域。EBL机器的成本从10万英镑到200多万英镑不等（例如Vistec EBPG +5000），该行业大致分为两类：在30KV及以下运行的低压机器（便宜）和在100KV运行的高压机器（非常昂贵）。昂贵的高压机器的主要优点是它们能够将电子束抗蚀剂图案化成更小的特征，并且具有比低压系统更高的纵横比。曼彻斯特大学开发了一种新的电子束抗蚀剂，称为SML系列抗蚀剂，以获得大的纵横比，使用低加速电压。如上所述，通常，大纵横比结构只能使用100KV EBL机器来实现。然而，使用中的绝大多数EBL机器是低电压种类的，因此制造高纵横比结构的能力对于大多数EBL社区来说是不可访问的。SML系列抗蚀剂克服了这一问题，并能够使用低电压机器制造非常高的纵横比结构。