Advances in Engineering Advances in Engineering features breaking research judged by Advances in Engineering advisory team to be of key importance in the Engineering field. Papers are selected from over 10,000 published each week from most peer reviewed journals.
Microelectronic Engineering, 30 March 2013.
Masaaki Yasuda, Hirofumi Sakai, Rina Takai, Hiroaki Kawata, Yoshihiko Hirai
Department of Physics and Electronics, Osaka Prefecture University, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan
Abstract
We performed molecular simulation to investigate the pattern formation in electron beam lithography. We introduced the effect of electron exposure by the chain scission of the polymer molecules. In the development process, the small segments of polymer molecules are removed from the resist structure. Our present simulation reveals the typical structure of atomic scale line edge roughness, i.e., the prominences of a molecular chain superimposed on an undulating molecular network. It also indicates that electron scattering in the resist is more dominant for determining the line edge roughness than the molecular behavior for PMMA resist even in atomic scale lithography.
