(123c) High Resolution Lithography Via Block Copolymers and Self-Assembling Surface Neutral Layers

Novel materials which enable electronics manufacture helps to drive the innovation cycles underlying the Information Age. Commercial materials for fine line lithography are becoming increasingly challenging in design as the required features size shrink further, down to 10 nm size and beyond. As the pattern sizes required become smaller than the capability of existing imaging tools, block copolymers off a distinct route towards even finer feature generation through pattern frequency multiplication. We will discuss the motivation, technical approaches and results from two distinct materials approaches to block copolymer directed self-assembly (DSA): 1) Plasma etch resistant block copolymers for practical graphoepitaxy for 16 nm and smaller patterning^1,2, and 2) Formation of vertical chemoepitaxy patterns through the use of high cn polymeric surface active additives³ that segregate to the top of the BCP film during casting and annealing, and balances the surface tensions at the top of the thin film.

1. Impact of materials selection on graphoepitaxial directed self-assembly for line-space patterning, Dung Quach, Valeriy V Ginzburg, Mingqi Li, Janet Wu, Shih-wei Chang, Peter Trefonas, Phillip D Hustad, Dan B Millward, Gurpreet S Lugani, Scott L Light, Proc. SPIE Advanced Lithography, 94230N-94230N-9 (2015).
2. Graphoepitaxial and chemoepitaxial methods for creating line-space patterns at 33nm pitch: comparison to a HVM process, Dan B Millward, Gurpreet S Lugani, Scott L Light, Ardavan Niroomand, Phillip D Hustad, Peter Trefonas, Dung Quach, Valeriy V Ginzburg, Proc. SPIE Advanced Lithography, 942304-12 (2015).
3. Orientation control in thin films of a high-χ block copolymer with a surface active embedded neutral layer, Jieqian Zhang, Michael B Clark, Chunyi Wu, Mingqi Li, Peter Trefonas III, Phillip D Hustad, Nano Letters, 16, 728-735 (2015).