Polytelluoxane as the ideal formulation for EUV photoresist

Abstract

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography has become the essence of advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes. While enabling smaller feature sizes, EUV lithography imposes increasingly stringent requirements on the comprehensive performance and stochastic defect suppression of photoresist. The widely recognized strategy to minimize these defects is a material that integrates high EUV absorption and energy utilization into a homogeneous system based on molecular building blocks—the ideal formulation for EUV photoresist. However, achieving these integrated characteristics within a single molecule has remained an unresolved challenge. Here, we address all these requirements by polytelluoxane using an organic telluride monomer polymerized via Te─O bonds. This polymeric photoresist, operating through a main chain scission mechanism, demonstrates high-performance positive-tone lithography. Attributed to this ideal formulation, our photoresist achieves a comprehensive 18-nm line width at a dose of 13.1 mJ/cm² with a line edge roughness of 1.97 nm. We believe that this strategy establishes a framework for the design of next-generation EUV photoresists.