Patterning of nanoscale Si lines using e-beam lithography and high-selectivity plasma etching

Patterning of nanoscale Si (<100 nm) lines is essential for nano Si device applications. In this work, electron-beam (e-beam) lithography with NEB-22 or hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) resists was employed to generate nanoscale patterns. E-beam exposure was performed in a Leica Weprint 200 system. The measured linewidth was analysed as a function of dosage for different designed linewidths on NEB-22 and HSQ resist films. A linear relationship with roughly constant slope is observed for all cases. HSQ has the advantages of high contrast and small width fluctuation for thinner line width definition by e-beam lithography. Nevertheless, dosage up to several hundreds /spl mu/C/cm /sup 2/ is too high, and may prevent HSQ from being used in practical applications.