Multicolor approaches to resolution enhancement in visible-light lithography hold the promise to afford resolution on the scale of tens of nm for large-area nanofabrication at a cost that is attractive for medium- to small-volume manufacturing applications, as well as in the research laboratory. In this talk I will review the history of multicolor lithography and discuss some of the latest advances in materials and methods.
Three-color lithography (3CL) is a technique for fabricating high-resolution nanopatterns using visible light. This technique has been benchmarked in one promising photoresist by fabricating arrays of posts in a three-color material. The smallest posts are ~130nm in diameter, and the best pitches are around 180nm. If the 3CL deactivation step is not used, any features that are fabricated this close together merge due to proximity effects. The benefit of 3CL over other techniques, such as multi-patterning and extreme UV lithography, is that 3CL uses inexpensive optics and light sources, and the setup is simpler because high vacuum is not necessary.
Multicolor photolithography using visible light holds the promise of achieving wafer-scale patterning at pitches on the 10 nm scale. Although substantial progress has been made on multicolor techniques, a number of challenges remain to be met before the ultimate resolution of these methods can be reached. These challenges include the development of improved materials, creation of high-quality thin films, transitioning to exposure schemes that rely completely on linear absorption, scaling up to large-area patterning, and developing methods for effective pattern transfer. This paper discusses the state of the art in multicolor photolithography, presents some of the most recent advances in this field, and examines the prospects moving forward.
Three-color lithography (3CL) can produce high-resolution features using visible light. This technique uses one beam to pre-activate a photoresist, a second beam to deactivate it, and a third beam to activate the pre-activated regions that have not been deactivated. The deactivation beam is used to trim features, allowing for improved feature size and resolution. Although this 3CL was pioneered with 2-photon excitation, the ultimate goal is to use thin films with linear excitation, such that it is compatible with industrial requirements. We will discuss the first thin-film 3CL studies, which are a promising step towards large-area patterning.
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