Medusa – the alternative to e-beam resist HSQ with improved properties

According to Greek mythology, one look at the Greek goddess Medusa turned everyone to stone. E-beam resist Medusa has quite similar properties; upon electron beam irradiation of the Medusa polymer silsesquioxane, structures of SiO₂ (sandstone) are formed, which offers many promising applications.

The long-established HSQ resists show excellent resolution and etch stability, but these advantageous properties come along with a low sensitivity and high process instability. In addition, HSQ must be processed very quickly to obtain reproducible results. Allresist now developed Medusa as an alternative to HSQ resists. Due to a modification of the polymer, resist Medusa can be handled very easily. A time span of a few days between coating, irradiation and development is now possible without any losses in quality. Sensitivity, etching behaviour and resolution otherwise corresponds to the properties of HSQ resists.

For a new variant of this resist, the sensitivity could even be increased by a factor of 20. Due to the addition of a photoacid generator, now only 60 μC/cm² are required to achieve complete cross-linking. Particularly highly etch-resistant masks can now be written about 20 times faster than before. Allresist presents the product and all results of a research project at the MNE in Copenhagen from September 24 to 27, 2018.

Contact: Dr. Tobias Mai, ALLRESIST GmbH
info@allresist.de