157 nm Resist materials: a progress report

The goal or this work has been to study candidate fluorocarbon materials that might serve as platforms from which to design 157nm resists. A specific goal of the work has been to identify transparent candidate materials that might provide a polymer backbone and acceptable etch resistance. Several model compounds were synthesized and their vacuum UV spectra were measured in the gas phase. Substituted norbornane (bicyclo[2.2.1]heptane) was of significant interest in this regard because we had used this structure successfully in the design systems for 193nm exposure. Surprisingly, 2-monofluoronorbornane is unstable and undergoes spontaneous dehydrohalogenation upon exposure to glass in vacuo. However, 2,2-substitution with fluorine and with other electron withdrawing groups such as trifluoromethyl and even carbonyl groups gives norbornyl derivatives with greatly improved transparency at 157nm. These observations led to the design a variety of novel norbornenes that can be polymerized by metal catalyzed addition polymerization to give etch resistant polymer platforms with greatly improved transparency at 157nm and led to the study of acrylic co-polymers derived from 2-(trifluoromethyl)acrylic acid