The Effect of Thin Film Confinement on the Physiochemical Properties of Polymer Ultra-Thin Films: Diffusion Behavior

摘要

The introduction of lower wavelength lithographic exposure tools has continuously necessitated the development of new photoresist polymers and the use of thinner resist films. These changes in polymer design and reductions in film thickness have prompted our recent studies of the effect of polymer type and thin film confinement on a variety of polymer thin film properties including the glass transition temperature, coefficient of thermal expansion, diffusion coefficient of small molecules within the film, and polymer film dissolution rate.These studies have shown that such physiochemical properties can change significantly as the polymer film thickness is decreased below a critical transition thickness and that the type of and size of the polymer can impact this thickness dependent behavior.