Studies on diazonaphthoquinone-incorporated dissolution inhibitors in deep-UV photolithography

The present main interest in photolithography is chemically amplified resists for 248 nm excimer laser lithography. However, the g-line and i-line photolithography is still predominately used by the industry. The main problem is the extendibility of Diazonaphthoquinone (DNQ)-based resists in deep UV region with a high sensitivity. DNQ-PAC compounds with mono- or poly-hydric aromatic backbones have been well investigated before, however, not many attempts have been made on backbones with saturated cyclic-compounds, which show higher UV transparency than conventional aromatic ballast molecules. In this thesis, we have examined the performances of two resists with 1,4- cyclohexanediol and 4,4'-propylidene dicyclohexanol as backbone compounds, together with poly (styrene-alt-maleic anhydride) as resin. Results show that they are able to give high-resolution positive tone resist images in deep UV (254 nm) photolithography. Moreover, dissolution inhibition between the two compounds was discussed by the proximity and size effect