Effects of rate constant for deprotection reaction on latent image formation in chemically amplified EUV resists

The topography of patterned resist surface such as line edge roughness (LER) or line width roughness (LWR) has become a serious problem in device manufacturing as the minimum feature size is reduced. LER has been reported to correlate with latent images. Using a simulation based on the reaction mechanisms of chemically amplified resists, the differences in latent image formation in high-and low-activation-energy-type resists was investigated. The aerial image of EUV (intensity distribution) is assumed to be a sine function and using the initial acid distribution as a boundary condition, the deprotection reactions were simulated.