Lithography

Stefano Soresi
Fondazione INPHOTEC, Pisa

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What is lithography?
A technology used to create 3D patterns with feature sizes ranging from few nm up to cm.

resist Pattern definition is carried out by exposing to an energetic radiation the resist - a thin layer of
polymeric material that is coated as a thin film onto the substrate, and used as a mask.

Combining lithography with other fabrication processes such as deposition and etching, a high-
substrate resolution topography can be produced in several materials of interest at wafer scale.

e.g. semiconductors (Si, SiO2, III-V…) - electronic integrated circuits (EICs)

- photonic integrated circuits (PICs)
- Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS)
- Micro-Opto-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MOEMS)
e.g. 3D patterning - Sensors
in the substrate by
e.g. metallization
etching
on the substrate
by lift-off

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Classes of lithography
The resist exposure has to be selective on the substrate, to define binary structures.
So the lithography can be done in two modes:

masked collimated radiation EXPOSURE THROUGH A MASK

→ simultaneous exposure over large areas
→ high throughput
→ resolution mainly limited by diffraction

mask • Photolithography (contact & proximity) – Mask aligners

• Photolithography (projection) – Steppers / Scanners
• EUV lithography
substrate • X-ray lithography

unmasked EXPOSURE WITHOUT A MASK

radiation → serial exposure via a focused radiation beam
→ low throughput
→ resolution mainly limited by radiation/matter
interaction

• e-beam lithography
• Ion beam lithography
substrate
• Laser lithography

Different approach: Nanoimprint lithography - “masked”, but radiation-

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The photo-lithography concept

(a) Exposure (b) Development

[ polymer chain breaking or cross-linking ] [ solving the less weighty molecules faster ]

(a) Contact printing (b) Proximity printing (c) Projection printing

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Negative and positive resist

resist
substrate

UV light
mask

exposed resist
exposure

negative resist
[ polymer chain cross-linking ] after development

positive resist
[ polymer chain breaking ]

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Typical photo-lithography process flow

UV Light

HMDS Resist Mask

1) Vapor prime 2) Spin coat 3) Soft bake 4) Alignment and exposure

5) Post-exposure bake 6) Develop 7) Post-develop bake 8) Optical inspection

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Substrate surface preparation
Cleaning: remove any contaminants like grease or organic dirt on the wafers prior to resist coating (typically using acetone and then
iso-propanol).

Dehydration: remove water prior to priming and coating.

Priming: (adhesion promoter) HMDS (hexa-methyl-di-silazane) is typically used before spinning resist. It reacts with the oxide
surface, by replacing –OH groups on wafer surface with –CH3 groups, at the same time leaving free bonds to react with the
photoresist and to improve adhesion.

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Resist components

Solvent:
gives resist its flow characteristics

Resin:
mix of polymers used as binder; gives resist mechanical and chemical properties

Sensitizers:
photosensitive component of the resist material

Additives:
chemicals that control specific aspects of the resist material

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Resist spin coating

resist
dispenser

vacuum chuck
to vacuum
pump spindle

Typical spinning curves:

thickness depends on the resist solid content and on the spinning speed
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Resist baking

A pre-exposure bake, or soft bake, is used to remove the solvent from the resist. A typical bake is 1 minute on a 90°C hot
plate or 30 minutes in a 90°C convection oven. Thick resists may benefit from a longer bake time.

Calculated No PEB PEB, 115°45 sec.

A post-exposure bake, or PEB, is used to reduce standing waves in

regular positive resist exposed on the steppers, or to catalytically
enhance the photoreaction in Chemically Amplified Resists, or
also to thermally activate chemical processes such as image
reversal. It will also affect the resist profile.

A post-development bake, or hard-bake, is sometimes used to improve a resist's wet and dry etch resistance by hardening it.
It may make the resist more difficult to remove, or easier for aggressive etches. In nearly all cases, temperatures above
~ 130°C will cause the resist to flow, so a DUV curing exposure is performed first to retain the profile.

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Alignment and exposure

Usually the fabrication of interesting structures requires several levels of lithography. In order to
accomplish good registration between all the levels, an alignment scheme must be worked out in the
planning stage, before the masks are made. The mask aligners are limited to a ± 1μm overlay accuracy.

Emission spectrum of high-intensity mercury lamp

UV light source
120 i-line
365 nm
100

Relative Intensity (%)

h-line g-line
405 nm 436 nm
80
Mask
60
DUV*
40 248 nm

20
0
Resist 200 300 400 500 600

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Wavelength (nm) 11
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Contact/Proximity Mask Aligner System

Mercury
arc lamp

Illuminator

Alignment scope
(split vision) Mask

Mask stage
(X, Y , Z , q)

Wafer

Wafer stage Vacuum

(X, Y, Z, q) chuck

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Photolithography resolution limits

Near field diffraction: Fresnel approximation

(a)

(b)
(a) Contact mode + thin resist (~1um) Þ more pinholes, but best
resolution
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(b) Proximity mode Þ resolution loss, but less pinhole defects
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e-beam lithography basics

1.226
le = (nm)
V

hc 1.24
llight = = ( µm)
eV V

• Uses resist like optical lithography, but resist is sensitive to electron exposure.
• Very small wavelength Þ resolution far less limited by diffraction.
• At its best, electron beam is focused to a spot size ~ 5nm using electron optics.
• Generate pattern by direct writing: no need of mask.
• Sequential pixel-by-pixel writing: low throughput , intended for R&D and small
production , unsuitable for mass production.
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Electron source
Electrons can be emitted from a filament (emitter or cathode)
by gaining additional energy from heat or electric field.

Three types of electron guns:

• Thermionic emission gun (W, LaB6, not-sharp tip).
• Field emission gun (cold, very sharp W tip, tunneling C: cathode for emitting electrons
current). E: extraction electrode
• Schottky gun (field assisted thermionic emission, sharp tip). A1, A2: cathode lens electrode to
focus the emitted electrons
Schottky emitters
• A Schottky source is a field assisted thermionic <100> W crystal
source.
• Schottky emitters can produce larger amounts of
current compared to cold FEG systems, so more
useful for e-beam lithography. ZrO2 reservoir
• Because they are always on (hot), organic
contamination is not an issue, hence they are very
stable (few % per week change in current)
Polycrystalline
• They eventually fail when the Zirconia reservoir is W heating
depleted, within 1-2 years. filament

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Electron optics

An electromagnetic lens can manipulate electron trajectory to form a

small electron probe.
If the image rotation is ignored, the electromagnetic lens behavior
can be described by the formula used for optical lens: 1/p+1/q=1/f.

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Aberrations

a
a

Chromatic Diffraction
Spherical

DOLC: disk of
least confusion DOLC

dc= Cca×DE/E0 (or DV/V) dd = 0.61l/NA =

ds = 0.5Cs a3 = 0.61l/sina » 0.61l/a

a b c d

Beam shape at different planes

Astigmatism
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Overall beam spot diameter

d = d g2 + d s2 + d c2 + d d2 (assume no astigmatism)

dv dv: virtual source diameter

dg = M: demagnification
M
1
d s = Csa 3 Spherical aberration
2
DV
d c = Cca Chromatic aberration
V
l 1.23 Diffraction
d d = 0.61 , l = nm
a V

• Beam spot size depends on acceleration voltage, because higher voltage leads to smaller chromatic
aberration, and shorter l thus smaller diffraction.
• A small beam divergence is good for aberrations, but not for diffraction, so a balance is needed.
• High resolution (~5nm) can be achieved at ~5kV for field emission (cold and Schottky) guns.

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Beam spot diameter: a real example

total beam diameter

spherical

source size limit dg

diffraction
chromatic

a:
• a is determined by aperture size (~10-100µm), which should be selected wisely.
• Typically beam diameter is NOT the limiting factor for high resolution, then large a is
good for high beam current and thus fast writing (assume beam blanker can follow).
• But large a also reduces depth of focus (µ1/a2), leading to large beam spot size
(low resolution) if beam not well focused due to wafer non-flatness or tilt.
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e-beam lithography resolution limits

The final resolution is due not only to the beam spot size, but mainly to the radiation/matter interaction

Resist

Substrate

Forward scattering Back scattering (by nuclei)

• As electrons enter resist, they experience small angle scattering, effectively broadening the initial
beam diameter.
• Forward scattering is minimized by using the thinnest possible resist and highest accelerating voltage.
Effective beam diameter:
• As electrons pass through resist and enter substrate, many will undergo large angle scattering events.
• These electrons may return back into the resist at a significant distance from the incident beam,
generating SE along their path and causing additional resist exposure: this is called the proximity effect

Scattering Þ spreading of the beam, resolution loss

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Monte-Carlo simulations on electron scattering

Number of backscattered electrons is not so Proximity effects are spread over larger areas at
dependent on energy, but its spatial distribution is. higher energies.
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Proximity effect

Area in-between
exposed by
proximity effect

• Proximity effect is negligible for isolated/sparse fine features.

• It is good for areal exposure (e.g. a big square >>1µm), since pixel can be much larger than beam spot
size (right figure). For example, beam step size (pixel) of 50nm is usually enough to give uniform areal
exposure, even with a beam spot size only 5nm.
• Proximity effect is worst for dense and fine patterns, such as gratings with sub-50nm pitch.

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Resist profile
A thinner layer may be obtained
after development due to
exposure by proximity effect
Original thickness

• Due to forward scattering and (to a less degree) Developed profile

back scattering, positive resist has always an
Resist
undercut profile.
• Negative resist always has a tapered profile.
• For patterning dense fine features, an undercut Positive resist
profile often causes resist structure to collapse
due to capillary force when developer is dried.
• That is, proximity effect makes patterning dense
fine features difficult.

Dense and fine structures

Resist (positive)
profile, not
mechanically Negative resist
substrate stable
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How to reduce proximity effects

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Proximity Effect Correction

Dose modulation

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Stitching error

• At high V, deflection field size in X, Y is ~ 1mm. Stage positioning accuracy is usually ~ 1μm.

• Larger patterns Þ stitching error, i.e. gaps or overlaps between adjacent writing fields.

• Without corrective systems, sensitive devices as e.g. optical waveguides would be

discontinuous at the boundaries between writing fields.

stitching in Y stitching in X stitching in X/Y

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Laser interferometer stage

• For advanced EBL systems, laser interferometry is used to

precisely measure the stage position .
• The position measurement accuracy is better than 1nm ,
thus the beam deflection can be compensated for writing
fields misalignment.
• Using laser beam, sample height can also be monitored to
maintain focusing (constant sample height).
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Resist choice for typical processes

• Which resist type to choose depends on which will give the minimum exposure area/time.
• For isolated sparse features, positive resist is suitable for liftoff process, while negative for direct
etch process.

Liftoff process using positive resist Direct etching process using negative resist

resist

1. Spin on positive resist 1. Spin on negative resist

2. EBL 2. EBL

3. Metal deposition 3. RIE substrate

4. Metal Liftoff
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Projection lithography systems – Steppers / Scanners

• Same concept as in contact or proximity photo-lithography, but a projection

system is used to reduce the mask feature size by a demagnification factor
Þ enhanced resolution

• Excimer laser light sources: l = 248 nm → 193 nm → 157 nm

• The mask is called reticle and it is moved along the horizontal plane, to expose
several dies on the substrate surface (step-and-repeat mode)

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EUV lithography

• Laser Produced Plasma Source, l = 13.4 nm!

• Special reflective optics (multi-layer mirrors)

for mask and projection optics

• Ultimate resolution ~nm!

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X-ray lithography
• Synchrotron radiation x-ray source (LPP much less powerful)

• l~ 10’s nm (soft x-rays) down to £1Å

• No backscatter or reflections: very fine features with vertical

Storage Ring sidewalls.
Shield Wall • 1X mask technology because refractive index for all materials is
(almost) absolutely 1.0 (no lens for demagnification).
• X-ray mask difficult to fabricate with many issues: fragile, defects,
aspect ratio, bending due to heating.

metal tape

high power laser

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Ion beam “lithography”

• Direct milling process using a focused beam of ions (Ga)

• No resist or mask required - subtractive

• Sub-10 nm features possible

• Limited throughput

• The biggest disadvantage of FIB lithography: limited exposure

depth in resist (<100nm for 100keV); thin resist makes following
liftoff or etching process difficult.

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Laser lithography

• Laser light source

• Resolution comparable or better than contact

lithography (0.3 um possible)

• Good throughput

• Affordable cost

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Nanoimprint lithography

• No mask, but imprint mold

• Sub-10 nm resolution demonstrated

• High throughput

• Affordable cost

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Thank you for your attention

ssoresi@cnit.it

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