Dependence of acid yield on acid generator in chemically amplified resist for post-optical lithography

The concept of Chemical Amplification has made a great impact on resist designs. Chemically amplified resist have been widely used as a mainstream resist especially after the deployment of KrF excimer lithography. This concept will remain a key to the next generation lithographies such as EUV and electron beam (EB). However, the reaction mechanism of EUV and EB resists are different from photoresists.[l] For the efficient development of new resists, it is important to elucidate fundamental chemical reactions induced by EUV and EB. Yield and dynamics of acids are essential to resist performance such as sensitivity and resolution. We previously reported proton generation mechanisms in polymethacrylates[2] and the dependency of proton generation efficiencies on ester groups.[3] In this paper, the dependencies of acid generator on acid yields in solid poly(methy1 methacrylate) (PMMA) matrices were investigated.