Lithography (from Ancient Greek

λίθος , lithos , meaning "stone", and

γράφειν, graphein , meaning "to write") is a method of printing originally based
on the immiscibility of oil and water. [1] The printing is from a stone
( lithographic limestone ) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was
invented in 1796 by German author and actor Alois Senefelder as a cheap
method of publishing theatrical works.
[2][3] Lithography can be used to print text or artwork onto paper or other
suitable material. [4]
Lithography originally used an image drawn with oil, fat, or wax onto the
surface of a smooth, level lithographic limestone plate. The stone was treated
with a mixture of acid and
gum arabic, etching the portions of the stone that were not protected by the
grease-based image. When the stone was subsequently moistened, these etched
areas retained water; an
oil-based ink could then be applied and would be repelled by the water, sticking
only to the original drawing. The ink would finally be transferred to a blank
paper sheet, producing a
printed page. This traditional technique is still used in some fine art printmaking
applications.
In modern lithography, the image is made of a polymer coating applied to a
flexible aluminum plate. The image can be printed directly from the plate (the
orientation of the image is reversed), or it can be offset, by transferring the
image onto a flexible sheet (rubber) for printing and publication.
As a printing technology, lithography is different from intaglio printing
(gravure), wherein a plate is either
engraved , etched , or stippled to score cavities to contain the printing ink; and
woodblock printing or letterpress printing, wherein ink is applied to the raised
surfaces of letters or images. Today, most types of high-volume books and
magazines, especially when illustrated in colour, are printed with
offset lithography , which has become the most common form of printing
technology since the 1960s.
The related term "photolithography" refers to when photographic images are
used in lithographic printing, whether these images are printed directly from a
stone or from a metal plate, as in offset printing. In fact, "photolithography" is
used synonymously with "offset printing". The technique as well as the term
were introduced in Europe in the 1850s. Beginning in the 1960s,
photolithography has played an important role in the fabrication and mass
production of integrated circuits in the microelectronics industry. [5][6]
The principle of lithography
Lithography uses simple chemical processes to create an image. For instance,
the positive part of an image is a water-repelling (" hydrophobic") substance,
while the negative image would be water-retaining (" hydrophilic "). Thus,
when the plate is introduced to a compatible printing ink and water mixture, the
ink will adhere to the positive image and the water will clean the negative
image. This allows a flat print plate to be used, enabling much longer and more
detailed print runs than the older physical methods of printing (e.g.,
intaglio printing, letterpress printing ).
Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in the Kingdom of Bavaria in
1796. In the early days of lithography, a smooth piece of
limestone was used (hence the name "lithography": "lithos" (λιθος) is the
ancient Greek word for stone). After the oil-based image was put on the surface,
a solution of gum arabic in water was applied, the gum sticking only to the non-
oily surface. During printing, water adhered to the gum arabic surfaces and was
repelled by the oily parts, while the oily ink used for printing did the opposite.
Lithography on limestone
Lithography stone and mirror image print of a map of Munich
Lithography works because of the mutual repulsion of oil and water. The image
is drawn on the surface of the print plate with a fat or oil-based medium
(hydrophobic) such as a wax crayon, which may be pigmented to make the
drawing visible. A wide range of oil-based media is available, but the durability
of the image on the stone depends on the lipid content of the material being
used, and its ability to withstand water and acid. After the drawing of the image,
an aqueous
solution of gum arabic, weakly acidified with nitric acid HNO 3 is applied to
the stone. The function of this solution is to create a hydrophilic layer of
calcium nitrate salt, Ca(NO 3) 2 , and gum arabic on all non-image surfaces.
The gum solution penetrates into the pores of the stone, completely surrounding
the original image with a hydrophilic layer that will not accept the printing ink.
Using lithographic
turpentine, the printer then removes any excess of the greasy drawing material,
but a hydrophobic molecular film of it remains tightly bonded to the surface of
the stone, rejecting the gum arabic and water, but ready to accept the oily ink.
[7]
[8] When printing, the stone is kept wet with water. Naturally the water is
attracted to the layer of gum and salt created by the acid wash. Printing ink
based on drying oils such as linseed oil and varnish loaded with pigment is then
rolled over the surface. The water repels the greasy ink but the hydrophobic
areas left by the original drawing material accept it. When the hydrophobic
image is loaded with ink, the stone and paper are run through a press that
applies even pressure over the surface, transferring the ink to the paper and off
the stone.
Senefelder had experimented during the early 19th century with multicolor
lithography; in his 1819 book, he predicted that the process would eventually be
perfected and used to reproduce paintings.[2] Multi-color printing was
introduced by a new process developed by Godefroy Engelmann (France) in
1837 known as
chromolithography .[2] A separate stone was used for each color, and a print
went through the press separately for each stone. The main challenge was to
keep the images aligned ( in register ). This method lent itself to images
consisting of large areas of flat color, and resulted in the characteristic poster
designs of this period.
"Lithography, or printing from soft stone, largely took the place of engraving in
the production of English commercial maps after about 1852. It was a quick,
cheap process and had been used to print British army maps during the
Peninsula War . Most of the commercial maps of the second half of the 19th
century were lithographed and unattractive, though accurate enough." [9]
Modern lithographic process
Main article: Offset printing
A 1902 lithograph map (original size 33×24 cm)
High-volume lithography is used presently to produce posters, maps, books,
newspapers, and packaging—just about any smooth, mass-produced item with
print and graphics on it. Most books, indeed all types of high-volume text, are
now printed using offset lithography .
For offset lithography, which depends on photographic processes, flexible
aluminum, polyester, mylar or paper printing plates are used instead of stone
tablets. Modern printing plates have a brushed or roughened texture and are
covered with a photosensitive
emulsion . A photographic negative of the desired image is placed in contact
with the emulsion and the plate is exposed to ultraviolet light. After
development, the emulsion shows a reverse of the negative image, which is thus
a duplicate of the original (positive) image. The image on the plate emulsion
can also be created by direct laser imaging in a CTP ( Computer-To-Plate )
device known as a platesetter. The positive image is the emulsion that remains
after imaging. Non-image portions of the emulsion have traditionally been
removed by a chemical process, though in recent times plates have come
available that do not require such processing.
Lithography press for printing maps in Munich
One of the lithography machines
The plate is affixed to a cylinder on a printing press. Dampening rollers apply
water, which covers the blank portions of the plate but is repelled by the
emulsion of the image area. Hydrophobic ink, which is repelled by the water
and only adheres to the emulsion of the image area, is then applied by the inking
rollers.
If this image were transferred directly to paper, it would create a mirror-type
image and the paper would become too wet. Instead, the plate rolls against a
cylinder covered with a rubber blanket , which squeezes away the water, picks
up the ink and transfers it to the paper with uniform pressure. The paper passes
between the blanket cylinder and a counter-pressure or impression cylinder and
the image is transferred to the paper. Because the image is first transferred, or
offset to the rubber blanket cylinder, this reproduction method is known as
offset lithography or offset printing .[10]
Many innovations and technical refinements have been made in printing
processes and presses over the years, including the development of presses with
multiple units (each containing one printing plate) that can print multi-color
images in one pass on both sides of the sheet, and presses that accommodate
continuous rolls ( webs) of paper, known as web presses. Another innovation
was the continuous dampening system first introduced by Dahlgren instead of
the old method which is still used on older presses (conventional dampening),
which are rollers covered with molleton (cloth) that absorbs the water. This
increased control of the water flow to the plate and allowed for better ink and
water balance. Current dampening systems include a "delta effect or vario,"
which slows the roller in contact with the plate, thus creating a sweeping
movement over the ink image to clean impurities known as "hickies".
Archive of lithographic stones in Munich
The process of lithography printing is illustrated by this simplified diagram .
This press is also called an ink pyramid because the ink is transferred through
several layers of rollers with different purposes. Fast lithographic 'web' printing
presses are commonly used in newspaper production.
The advent of desktop publishing made it possible for type and images to be
modified easily on personal computers for eventual printing by desktop or
commercial presses. The development of digital imagesetters enabled print
shops to produce negatives for platemaking directly from digital input, skipping
the intermediate step of photographing an actual page layout. The development
of the digital platesetter during the late 20th century eliminated film negatives
altogether by exposing printing plates directly from digital input, a process
known as computer to plate printing.
Microlithography and nanolithography
Main article: Photolithography
Microlithography and nanolithography refer specifically to lithographic
patterning methods capable of structuring material on a fine scale. Typically,
features smaller than 10
micrometers are considered microlithographic, and features smaller than 100
nanometers are considered nanolithographic.
Photolithography is one of these methods, often applied to
semiconductor manufacturing of
microchips. Photolithography is also commonly used for fabricating
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. Photolithography generally
uses a pre-fabricated
photomask or reticle as a master from which the final pattern is derived.
Although photolithographic technology is the most commercially advanced
form of nanolithography, other techniques are also used. Some, for example
electron beam lithography , are capable of much greater patterning resolution
(sometimes as small as a few nanometers). Electron beam lithography is also
important commercially, primarily for its use in the manufacture of photomasks.
Electron beam lithography as it is usually practiced is a form of
maskless lithography , in that a mask is not required to generate the final
pattern. Instead, the final pattern is created directly from a digital representation
on a computer, by controlling an electron beam as it scans across a resist
-coated substrate. Electron beam lithography has the disadvantage of being
much slower than photolithography.
In addition to these commercially well-established techniques, a large number
of promising microlithographic and
nanolithographic technologies exist or are being developed, including
nanoimprint lithography , interference lithography , X-ray lithography ,
extreme ultraviolet lithography ,
magnetolithography and scanning probe lithography . Some of these new
techniques have been used successfully for small-scale commercial and
important research applications. Surface-charge lithography, in fact Plasma
desorption mass spectrometry can be directly patterned on polar dielectric
crystals via pyroelectric effect, [11] Diffraction lithography. [12]
Lithography as an artistic medium
Smiling Spider by Odilon Redon , 1891
During the first years of the 19th century, lithography had only a limited effect
on printmaking , mainly because technical difficulties remained to be overcome.
Germany was the main center of production in this period.
Godefroy Engelmann , who moved his press from Mulhouse to Paris in 1816,
largely succeeded in resolving the technical problems, and during the 1820s
lithography was adopted by artists such as Delacroix and
Géricault . London also became a center, and some of Géricault's prints were in
fact produced there. Goya in Bordeaux produced his last series of prints by
lithography— The Bulls of Bordeaux of 1828. By the mid-century the initial
enthusiasm had somewhat diminished in both countries, although the use of
lithography was increasingly favored for commercial applications, which
included the prints of Daumier , published in newspapers.
Rodolphe Bresdin and Jean-François Millet also continued to practice the
medium in France, and Adolf Menzel in Germany. In 1862 the publisher Cadart
tried to initiate a portfolio of lithographs by various artists, which was not
successful but included several prints by Manet . The revival began during the
1870s, especially in France with artists such as Odilon Redon , Henri Fantin-
Latour and Degas producing much of their work in this manner. The need for
strictly limited
editions to maintain the price had now been realized, and the medium became
more accepted.
Self Portrait with Skeleton Arm by Edvard Munch
In the 1890s, color lithography gained success in part by the emergence of
Jules Chéret , known as the father of the modern poster , whose work went on to
inspired a new generation of poster designers and painters, most notably
Toulouse-Lautrec , and former student of Chéret, Georges de Feure . By 1900
the medium in both color and monotone was an accepted part of printmaking.
During the 20th century, a group of artists, including Braque, Calder,
Chagall , Dufy, Léger , Matisse , Miró, and Picasso, rediscovered the largely
undeveloped artform of lithography thanks to the Mourlot Studios, also known
as Atelier Mourlot , a Parisian printshop founded in 1852 by the Mourlot
family. The Atelier Mourlot originally specialized in the printing of wallpaper;
but it was transformed when the founder's grandson, Fernand Mourlot , invited a
number of 20th-century artists to explore the complexities of fine art printing.
Mourlot encouraged the painters to work directly on lithographic stones in order
to create original artworks that could then be executed under the direction of
master printers in small editions. The combination of modern artist and master
printer resulted in lithographs that were used as posters to promote the artists'
work. [13][14]
Grant Wood, George Bellows, Alphonse Mucha, Max Kahn , Pablo Picasso,
Eleanor Coen, Jasper Johns , David Hockney , Susan Dorothea White and
Robert Rauschenberg are a few of the artists who have produced most of their
prints in the medium. M. C. Escher is considered a master of lithography, and
many of his prints were created using this process. More than other printmaking
techniques,
printmakers in lithography still largely depend on access to good printers , and
the development of the medium has been greatly influenced by when and where
these have been established.
Further information: List of printmakers
As a special form of lithography, the serilith process is sometimes used.
Seriliths are mixed media original prints created in a process in which an artist
uses the lithograph and
serigraph processes. The separations for both processes are hand-drawn by the
artist. The serilith technique is used primarily to create fine art limited print
editions.[15]
Gallery
Washington's Residence, High Street, Philadelphia , 1830 lithograph by William
L. Breton.
Hé! La chian..... li....li....li..... [It's a blood...dy...dy...dy... mess], lithograph of
Louis-Philippe of France by Honoré Daumier , 1834
Butterflies from Adalbert Seitz's "Macrolepidoptera of the World" (1923).
An 1836 lithograph of Mexican women making tortillas by Carl Nebel .
An example of a 19th-century lithograph depicting royal Afghan soldiers of the
Durrani Empire in Afghanistan. (1847)
Queen Victoria visits the HMS
Resolute in a lithograph by George Zobel after William Simpson (1859)
Alfred Concanen 's 1867 design for
Champagne Charlie
At Eternity's Gate , 1882 lithograph by
Vincent van Gogh .
Sea anemones from Ernst Haeckel 's
Kunstformen der Natur ( Artforms of Nature ), 1904.
In the Park, Light – George Bellows 1916
Palace of São Cristóvão, the former residence of the Emperors of Brazil , 19th
century lithograph by Jean-Baptiste Debret.

Photolithography
For other uses of photolithography in printing, see Lithography. For the same
process applied to metal, see
Photochemical machining .
Photolithography , also termed optical lithography or UV lithography , is a
process used in microfabrication to pattern parts of a thin film or the bulk of a
substrate. It uses light to transfer a geometric pattern from a
photomask to a light-sensitive chemical "photoresist ", or simply "resist," on the
substrate. A series of
chemical treatments then either engraves the exposure pattern into, or enables
deposition of a new material in the desired pattern upon, the material
underneath the photo resist. For example, in complex integrated circuits, a
modern CMOS wafer will go through the photolithographic cycle up to 50
times.
Photolithography shares some fundamental principles with
photography in that the pattern in the
etching resist is created by exposing it to light, either directly (without using a
mask) or with a projected image using an optical mask . This procedure is
comparable to a high precision version of the method used to make
printed circuit boards . Subsequent stages in the process have more in common
with etching than with
lithographic printing. It is used because it can create extremely small patterns
(down to a few tens of nanometers in size), it affords exact control over the
shape and size of the objects it creates, and because it can create patterns over
an entire surface cost-effectively. Its main disadvantages are that it requires a
flat substrate to start with, it is not very effective at creating shapes that are not
flat, and it can require extremely clean operating conditions.
History
The root words photo, litho , and
graphy all have Greek origins, with the meanings 'light', 'stone' and 'writing'
respectively. As suggested by the name compounded from them,
photolithography is a printing method (originally based on the use of limestone
printing plates) in which light plays an essential role. In the 1820s, Nicephore
Niepce invented a
photographic process that used
Bitumen of Judea , a natural asphalt, as the first photoresist. A thin coating of
the bitumen on a sheet of metal, glass or stone became less soluble where it was
exposed to light; the unexposed parts could then be rinsed away with a suitable
solvent, baring the material beneath, which was then chemically etched in an
acid bath to produce a printing plate. The light-sensitivity of bitumen was very
poor and very long exposures were required, but despite the later introduction of
more sensitive alternatives, its low cost and superb resistance to strong acids
prolonged its commercial life into the early 20th century. In 1940, Oskar Süß
created a
positive photoresist by using
diazonaphthoquinone, which worked in the opposite manner: the coating was
initially insoluble and was rendered soluble where it was exposed to light. [1] In
1954, Louis Plambeck Jr. developed the Dycryl polymeric letterpress plate,
which made the platemaking process faster.
A single iteration of photolithography combines several steps in sequence.
Modern cleanrooms use automated,
robotic wafer track systems to coordinate the process. The procedure described
here omits some advanced treatments, such as thinning agents or edge-bead
removal.[3]
Cleaning
If organic or inorganic contaminations are present on the wafer surface, they are
usually removed by wet chemical treatment, e.g. the RCA clean procedure
based on solutions containing hydrogen peroxide . Other solutions made with
trichloroethylene, acetone or methanol can also be used to clean. [4]
Preparation
The wafer is initially heated to a temperature sufficient to drive off any moisture
that may be present on the wafer surface, 150 °C for ten minutes is sufficient.
Wafers that have been in storage must be chemically cleaned to remove
contamination . A liquid or
gaseous "adhesion promoter", such as Bis(trimethylsilyl)amine
("hexamethyldisilazane", HMDS) , is applied to promote adhesion of the
photoresist to the wafer. The surface layer of silicon dioxide on the wafer reacts
with HMDS to form tri-methylated silicon-dioxide, a highly water repellent
layer not unlike the layer of wax on a car's paint. This water repellent layer
prevents the aqueous developer from penetrating between the photoresist layer
and the wafer's surface, thus preventing so-called lifting of small photoresist
structures in the (developing) pattern. In order to ensure the development of the
image, it is best covered and placed over a hot plate and let it dry while
stabilizing the temperature at 120 °C. [5]
Photoresist application
The wafer is covered with photoresist by spin coating . A viscous, liquid
solution of photoresist is dispensed onto the wafer, and the wafer is spun rapidly
to produce a uniformly thick layer. The spin coating typically runs at 1200 to
4800 rpm for 30 to 60 seconds, and produces a layer between 0.5 and 2.5
micrometres thick. The spin coating process results in a uniform thin layer,
usually with uniformity of within 5 to 10 nanometres. This uniformity can be
explained by detailed fluid-mechanical modelling, which shows that the resist
moves much faster at the top of the layer than at the bottom, where viscous
forces bind the resist to the wafer surface. Thus, the top layer of resist is quickly
ejected from the wafer's edge while the bottom layer still creeps slowly radially
along the wafer. In this way, any 'bump' or 'ridge' of resist is removed, leaving a
very flat layer. Final thickness is also determined by the evaporation of liquid
solvents from the resist. For very small, dense features (< 125 or so nm), lower
resist thicknesses (< 0.5 micrometres) are needed to overcome collapse effects
at high aspect ratios; typical aspect ratios are < 4:1.
The photo resist-coated wafer is then prebaked to drive off excess photoresist
solvent, typically at 90 to 100 °C for 30 to 60 seconds on a hotplate.
Exposure and developing
After prebaking, the photoresist is exposed to a pattern of intense light. The
exposure to light causes a chemical change that allows some of the photoresist
to be removed by a special solution, called "developer" by analogy with
photographic developer . Positive photoresist, the most common type, becomes
soluble in the developer when exposed; with negative photoresist, unexposed
regions are soluble in the developer.
A post-exposure bake (PEB) is performed before developing, typically to help
reduce standing wave phenomena caused by the destructive and constructive
interference patterns of the incident light. In deep ultraviolet lithography,
chemically amplified resist (CAR) chemistry is used. This process is much more
sensitive to PEB time, temperature, and delay, as most of the "exposure"
reaction (creating acid, making the polymer soluble in the basic developer)
actually occurs in the PEB. [6]
The develop chemistry is delivered on a spinner, much like photoresist.
Developers originally often contained
sodium hydroxide (NaOH). However,
sodium is considered an extremely undesirable contaminant in MOSFET
fabrication because it degrades the
insulating properties of gate oxides (specifically, sodium ions can migrate in
and out of the gate, changing the threshold voltage of the transistor and making
it harder or easier to turn the transistor on over time). Metal-ion-free developers
such as
tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) are now used.
The resulting wafer is then "hard-baked" if a non-chemically amplified resist
was used, typically at 120 to 180 °C [citation needed] for 20 to 30 minutes. The
hard bake solidifies the remaining photoresist, to make a more durable
protecting layer in future ion implantation , wet chemical etching , or plasma
etching .
Etching
Main article: Etching (microfabrication)
In etching, a liquid ("wet") or plasma ("dry") chemical agent removes the
uppermost layer of the substrate in the areas that are not protected by
photoresist. In semiconductor fabrication , dry etching techniques are generally
used, as they can be made
anisotropic, in order to avoid significant undercutting of the photoresist pattern.
This is essential when the width of the features to be defined is similar to or less
than the thickness of the material being etched (i.e. when the aspect ratio
approaches unity). Wet etch processes are generally isotropic in nature, which is
often indispensable for
microelectromechanical systems, where suspended structures must be
"released" from the underlying layer.
The development of low-defectivity anisotropic dry-etch process has enabled
the ever-smaller features defined photolithographically in the resist to be
transferred to the substrate material.
Photoresist removal
After a photoresist is no longer needed, it must be removed from the substrate.
This usually requires a liquid "resist stripper", which chemically alters the resist
so that it no longer adheres to the substrate. Alternatively, photoresist may be
removed by a plasma containing
oxygen , which oxidizes it. This process is called ashing , and resembles dry
etching. Use of 1-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) solvent for photoresist is
another method used to remove an image. When the resist has been dissolved,
the solvent can be removed by heating to 80 °C without leaving any residue. [7]
Exposure ("printing") systems
The wafer track portion of an aligner that uses 365 nm ultraviolet light
Exposure systems typically produce an image on the wafer using a
photomask. The photomask blocks light in some areas and lets it pass in others.
( Maskless lithography projects a precise beam directly onto the wafer without
using a mask, but it is not widely used in commercial processes.) Exposure
systems may be classified by the optics that transfer the image from the mask to
the wafer.
Contact and proximity
Main article: Contact lithography
A contact printer, the simplest exposure system, puts a photomask in direct
contact with the wafer and exposes it to a uniform light. A proximity printer
puts a small gap between the photomask and wafer. In both cases, the mask
covers the entire wafer, and simultaneously patterns every die.
Contact printing is liable to damage both the mask and the wafer, and this was
the primary reason it was abandoned for high volume production. Both contact
and proximity lithography require the light intensity to be uniform across an
entire wafer, and the mask to align precisely to features already on the wafer. As
modern processes use increasingly large wafers, these conditions become
increasingly difficult.
Research and prototyping processes often use contact or proximity lithography,
because it uses inexpensive hardware and can achieve high optical resolution.
The resolution in proximity lithography is approximately the square root of the
product of the wavelength and the gap distance. Hence, except for projection
lithography (see below), contact printing offers the best resolution, because its
gap distance is approximately zero (neglecting the thickness of the photoresist
itself). In addition, nanoimprint lithography may revive interest in this familiar
technique, especially since the cost of ownership is expected to be low;
however, the shortcomings of contact printing discussed above remain as
challenges.
Projection
See also: Stepper
Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) lithography uses projection systems. Unlike
contact or proximity masks, which cover an entire wafer, projection masks
(known as "reticles") show only one die or an array of dies (known as a "field").
Projection exposure systems (steppers or scanners) project the mask onto the
wafer many times to create the complete pattern.
Photomasks
Main article: Photomask
The image for the mask originates from a computerized data file. This data file
is converted to a series of polygons and written onto a square
fused quartz substrate covered with a layer of chromium using a
photolithographic process. A laser beam (laser writer) or a beam of electrons (e-
beam writer) is used to expose the pattern defined by the data file and travels
over the surface of the substrate in either a vector or raster scan manner. Where
the photoresist on the mask is exposed, the chrome can be etched away, leaving
a clear path for the illumination light in the stepper/scanner system to travel
through.
Resolution in projection systems
Main articles: Optics § Diffraction and optical resolution , Diffraction and
Optical resolution
The filtered fluorescent lighting in photolithography cleanrooms contains no
ultraviolet or blue light in order to avoid exposing photoresists. The spectrum of
light emitted by such fixtures gives virtually all such spaces a bright yellow
color.
The ability to project a clear image of a small feature onto the wafer is
limited by the wavelength of the light that is used, and the ability of the
reduction lens system to capture enough diffraction orders from the illuminated
mask. Current state-of-the-art photolithography tools use
deep ultraviolet (DUV) light from excimer lasers with wavelengths of 248 and
193 nm (the dominant lithography technology today is thus also called "excimer
laser lithography"), which allow minimum feature sizes down to 50 nm.
Excimer laser lithography has thus played a critical role in the continued
advance of the so-called Moore’s Law for the last 20 years (see below[8] ).
The minimum feature size that a projection system can print is given
approximately by:
where
is the minimum feature size (also called the critical dimension , target design
rule ). It is also common to write 2 times the half-pitch .
(commonly called k1 factor ) is a coefficient that encapsulates process-related
factors, and typically equals 0.4 for production. The minimum feature size can
be reduced by decreasing this coefficient through
Computational lithography .
is the wavelength of light used
is the numerical aperture of the lens as seen from the wafer
According to this equation, minimum feature sizes can be decreased by
decreasing the wavelength, and increasing the numerical aperture (to achieve a
tighter focused beam and a smaller spot size). However, this design method runs
into a competing constraint. In modern systems, the
depth of focus is also a concern:
Here, is another process-related coefficient. The depth of focus restricts the
thickness of the photoresist and the depth of the topography on the wafer.
Chemical mechanical polishing is often used to flatten topography before high-
resolution lithographic steps.
Light sources
One of the evolutionary paths of lithography has been the use of shorter
wavelengths. It is worth noting that the same light source may be used for
several technology generations.
Historically, photolithography has used ultraviolet light from gas-discharge
lamps using mercury , sometimes in combination with noble gases such as
xenon. These lamps produce light across a broad spectrum with several strong
peaks in the ultraviolet range. This spectrum is filtered to select a single spectral
line . From the early 1960s through the mid-1980s, Hg lamps had been used in
lithography for their spectral lines at 436 nm ("g-line"), 405 nm ("h-line") and
365 nm ("i-line"). However, with the semiconductor industry’s need for both
higher resolution (to produce denser and faster chips) and higher throughput
(for lower costs), the lamp-based lithography tools were no longer able to meet
the industry’s requirements.
This challenge was overcome when in a pioneering development in 1982,
excimer laser lithography was proposed and demonstrated at I.B.M. by Kanti
Jain, [9][10][11][12] and now excimer laser lithography machines (steppers and
scanners) are the primary tools used worldwide in microelectronics production.
With phenomenal advances made in tool technology in the last two decades, it
is the semiconductor industry view[8] that excimer laser lithography has been a
crucial factor in the continued advance of Moore’s Law, enabling minimum
features sizes in chip manufacturing to shrink from 0.5 micrometer in 1990 to
45 nanometers and below in 2010. This trend is expected to continue into this
decade for even denser chips, with minimum features approaching 10
nanometers. From an even broader scientific and technological perspective, in
the 50-year history of the laser since its first demonstration in 1960, the
invention and development of excimer laser lithography has been recognized as
a major milestone. [13][14][15]
The commonly used deep ultraviolet
excimer lasers in lithography systems are the krypton fluoride laser at 248 nm
wavelength and the argon fluoride laser at 193 nm wavelength. The primary
manufacturers of excimer laser light sources in the 1980s were Lambda Physik
(now part of Coherent, Inc.) and Lumonics. Since the mid-1990s Cymer Inc. has
become the dominant supplier of excimer laser sources to the lithography
equipment manufacturers, with Gigaphoton Inc. as their closest rival. Generally,
an excimer laser is designed to operate with a specific gas mixture; therefore,
changing wavelength is not a trivial matter, as the method of generating the new
wavelength is completely different, and the absorption characteristics of
materials change. For example, air begins to absorb significantly around the 193
nm wavelength; moving to sub-193 nm wavelengths would require installing
vacuum pump and purge equipment on the lithography tools (a significant
challenge). Furthermore, insulating materials such as silicon dioxide , when
exposed to photons with energy greater than the band gap, release free electrons
and holes which subsequently cause adverse charging.
Optical lithography has been extended to feature sizes below 50 nm using the
193 nm ArF excimer laser and liquid immersion techniques. Also termed
immersion lithography , this enables the use of optics with numerical apertures
exceeding 1.0. The liquid used is typically ultra-pure, deionised water, which
provides for a
refractive index above that of the usual air gap between the lens and the wafer
surface. The water is continually circulated to eliminate thermally-induced
distortions. Water will only allow NA' s of up to ~1.4, but materials with higher
refractive indices will allow the effective NA to be increased further.
Changing the lithography wavelength is significantly limited by absorption. Air
absorbs below ~ 185 nm.
Experimental tools using the 157 nm wavelength from the F2 excimer laser in a
manner similar to current exposure systems have been built. These were once
targeted to succeed 193 nm lithography at the 65 nm feature size node but have
now all but been eliminated by the introduction of immersion lithography. This
was due to persistent technical problems with the 157 nm technology and
economic considerations that provided strong incentives for the continued use
of 193 nm excimer laser lithography technology. High-index immersion
lithography is the newest extension of 193 nm lithography to be considered. In
2006, features less than 30 nm were demonstrated by IBM using this technique.
[16]
UV excimer lasers have been demonstrated to about 126 nm (for Ar 2 *).
Excimer lasers are generally preferred to more than the mercury arc lamps
because they have a higher resolution. Mercury arc lamps are designed to
maintain a steady DC current of 50 to 150 Volts, however the resolution is not
optimal. Excimer lasers are gas-based light systems that are usually filled with
inert and halide gases (Kr, Ar, Xe, F and Cl) that are charged by an electric
field. The faster the frequency the greater the resolution of the image. KrF lasers
are able to function at a frequency of 4 kHz which is why they are so optimal. In
addition to running at a higher frequency, excimer lasers are compatible with
more advanced machines than mercury arc lamps are. They are also able to
operate from greater distances (up to 25 meters) and are able to maintain their
accuracy with a series of mirrors and antireflective-coated lenses. By setting up
multiple lasers and mirrors, the amount of energy loss is minimized, also since
the lenses are coated with antireflective material, the light intensity remains
relatively the same from when it left the laser to when it hits the wafer. [17]
Lasers have been used to indirectly generate non-coherent extreme UV (EUV)
light at 13.5 nm for extreme ultraviolet lithography . The EUV light is not
emitted by the laser, but rather by a tin or xenon plasma which is excited by an
eximer laser. Fabrication of feature sizes of 10 nm has been demonstrated in
production environments, but not yet at rates needed for commercialization.
However, this is expected by 2016.[18] This technique does not require a
synchrotron, and EUV sources, as noted, do not produce coherent light.
However vacuum systems and a number of novel technologies (including much
higher EUV energies than are now produced) are needed to work with UV at the
edge of the X-ray spectrum (which begins at 10 nm).
An option, especially if and when wavelengths continue to decrease to extreme
UV or X-ray, is the free-electron laser (or one might say xaser for an X-ray
device). These can produce high quality beams at arbitrary wavelengths.
Experimental methods
See also: Next-generation lithography and Nanolithography
Photolithography has been defeating predictions of its demise for many years.
For instance, by the early 1980s, many in the semiconductor industry had come
to believe that features smaller than 1 micrometer could not be printed optically.
Modern techniques using excimer laser lithography already print features with
dimensions a fraction of the wavelength of light used – an amazing optical feat.
New tricks such as
immersion lithography , dual-tone resist and multiple patterning continue to
improve the resolution of 193 nm lithography. Meanwhile, current research is
exploring alternatives to conventional UV, such as electron beam lithography ,
X-ray lithography , extreme ultraviolet lithography and ion projection
lithography

Electron-beam lithography
An example of 'Electron beam lithograph' setup
Electron-beam lithography (often abbreviated as e-beam lithography ) is the
practice of scanning a focused beam of electrons to draw custom shapes on a
surface covered with an electron-sensitive film called a resist ("exposing"). [1]
The electron beam changes the solubility of the resist, enabling selective
removal of either the exposed or non-exposed regions of the resist by immersing
it in a solvent ("developing"). The purpose, as with photolithography, is to
create very small structures in the resist that can subsequently be transferred to
the substrate material, often by etching.
The primary advantage of electron-beam lithography is that it can draw custom
patterns (direct-write) with sub-10 nm resolution. This form of
maskless lithography has high resolution and low throughput, limiting its usage
to photomask fabrication, low-volume production of semiconductor devices,
and research and development .
Electron-beam lithography systems
Electron-beam lithography systems used in commercial applications are
dedicated e-beam writing systems that are very expensive (> US$1M). For
research applications, it is very common to convert an electron microscope into
an electron beam lithography system using a relatively low cost accessories (<
US$100K). Such converted systems have produced linewidths of ~20 nm since
at least 1990, while current dedicated systems have produced linewidths on the
order of 10 nm or smaller.
Electron-beam lithography systems can be classified according to both beam
shape and beam deflection strategy. Older systems used Gaussian-shaped beams
and scanned these beams in a raster fashion. Newer systems use shaped beams,
which may be deflected to various positions in the writing field (this is also
known as vector scan).
Electron sources
Lower-resolution systems can use
thermionic sources, which are usually formed from lanthanum hexaboride .
However, systems with higher-resolution requirements need to use
field electron emission sources, such as heated W/ZrO 2 for lower energy
spread and enhanced brightness. Thermal field emission sources are preferred
over cold emission sources, in spite of the former's slightly larger beam size,
because they offer better stability over typical writing times of several hours.
Lenses
Both electrostatic and magnetic lenses may be used. However, electrostatic
lenses have more aberrations and so are not used for fine focusing. There is no
current mechanism to make achromatic electron beam lenses, so extremely
narrow dispersions of the electron beam energy are needed for finest focusing.
Stage, stitching and alignment
Field stitching. Stitching is a concern for critical features crossing a field
boundary (red dotted line).
Typically, for very small beam deflections electrostatic deflection "lenses" are
used, larger beam deflections require electromagnetic scanning. Because of the
inaccuracy and because of the finite number of steps in the exposure grid the
writing field is of the order of 100 micrometre – 1 mm. Larger patterns require
stage moves. An accurate stage is critical for stitching (tiling writing fields
exactly against each other) and pattern overlay (aligning a pattern to a
previously made one).
Electron beam write time
The minimum time to expose a given area for a given dose is given by the
following formula: [2]
where is the time to expose the object (can be divided into exposure time/step
size), is the beam current,
is the dose and is the area exposed.
For example, assuming an exposure area of 1 cm 2, a dose of 10 −3
coulombs/cm 2 , and a beam current of 10 −9 amperes, the resulting minimum
write time would be 106 seconds (about 12 days). This minimum write time
does not include time for the stage to move back and forth, as well as time for
the beam to be blanked (blocked from the wafer during deflection), as well as
time for other possible beam corrections and adjustments in the middle of
writing. To cover the 700 cm 2 surface area of a 300 mm silicon wafer, the
minimum write time would extend to 7*10 8 seconds, about 22 years. This is a
factor of about 10 million times slower than current optical lithography tools. It
is clear that throughput is a serious limitation for electron beam lithography,
especially when writing dense patterns over a large area.
E-beam lithography is not suitable for high-volume manufacturing because of
its limited throughput. The smaller field of electron beam writing makes for
very slow pattern generation compared with photolithography (the current
standard) because more exposure fields must be scanned to form the final
pattern area (≤mm 2 for electron beam vs. ≥40 mm 2 for an optical mask
projection scanner). The stage moves in between field scans. The electron beam
field is small enough that a rastering or serpentine stage motion is needed to
pattern a 26 mm X 33 mm area for example, whereas in a photolithography
scanner only a one-dimensional motion of a 26 mm X 2 mm slit field would be
required.
Currently an optical maskless lithography tool[3] is much faster than an electron
beam tool used at the same resolution for photomask patterning.
Shot noise
As features sizes shrink, the number of incident electrons at fixed dose also
shrinks. As soon as the number reaches ~10000, shot noise effects become
predominant, leading to substantial natural dose variation within a large feature
population. With each successive process node, as the feature area is halved, the
minimum dose must double to maintain the same noise level. Consequently, the
tool throughput would be halved with each successive process node.
feature diameter (nm)
minimum dose for one-in-a-million 5% dose error (μC/cm 2)
40 127
28 260
20 509
14 1039
10 2037
7 4158
Note: 1 ppm of population is about 5 standard deviations away from the mean
dose.
Ref.: SPIE Proc. 8683-36 (2013)
Shot noise is a significant consideration even for mask fabrication. For example,
a commercial mask e-beam resist like FEP-171 would use doses less than 10
μC/cm 2,
[4][5] whereas this leads to noticeable shot noise for a target CD even on the
order of ~200 nm on the mask. [6][7]
Defects in electron-beam lithography
Despite the high resolution of electron-beam lithography, the generation of
defects during electron-beam lithography is often not considered by users.
Defects may be classified into two categories: data-related defects, and physical
defects.
Data-related defects may be classified further into two sub-categories.
Blanking or deflection errors occur when the electron beam is not deflected
properly when it is supposed to, while shaping errors occur in variable-shaped
beam systems when the wrong shape is projected onto the sample. These errors
can originate either from the electron optical control hardware or the input data
that was taped out. As might be expected, larger data files are more susceptible
to data-related defects.
Physical defects are more varied, and can include sample charging (either
negative or positive), backscattering calculation errors, dose errors, fogging
(long-range reflection of backscattered electrons), outgassing, contamination,
beam drift and particles. Since the write time for electron beam lithography can
easily exceed a day, "randomly occurring" defects are more likely to occur.
Here again, larger data files can present more opportunities for defects.
Photomask defects largely originate during the electron beam lithography used
for pattern definition.
Electron energy deposition in matter
Electron trajectories in resist: An incident electron (red) produces secondary
electrons (blue). Sometimes, the incident electron may itself be backscattered as
shown here and leave the surface of the resist (amber).
The primary electrons in the incident beam lose energy upon entering a material
through inelastic scattering or collisions with other electrons. In such a collision
the momentum transfer from the incident electron to an atomic electron can be
expressed as [8] , where b is the distance of closest approach between the
electrons, and v is the incident electron velocity. The energy transferred by the
collision is given by
, where
m is the electron mass and E is the incident electron energy, given by
. By integrating over all values of T between the lowest binding energy, E 0 and
the incident energy, one obtains the result that the total cross section for
collision is inversely proportional to the incident energy , and proportional to
1/E 0 – 1/E . Generally, E >> E 0, so the result is essentially inversely
proportional to the binding energy.
By using the same integration approach, but over the range 2E 0 to
E , one obtains by comparing cross-sections that half of the inelastic collisions
of the incident electrons produce electrons with kinetic energy greater than E 0.
These secondary electrons are capable of breaking bonds (with binding energy
E 0) at some distance away from the original collision. Additionally, they can
generate additional, lower energy electrons, resulting in an electron cascade .
Hence, it is important to recognize the significant contribution of secondary
electrons to the spread of the energy deposition.
In general, for a molecule AB: [9]
e − + AB → AB − → A + B −
This reaction, also known as "electron attachment" or "dissociative electron
attachment" is most likely to occur after the electron has essentially slowed to a
halt, since it is easiest to capture at that point. The cross-section for electron
attachment is inversely proportional to electron energy at high energies, but
approaches a maximum limiting value at zero energy. [10] On the other hand, it
is already known that the mean free path at the lowest energies (few to several
eV or less, where dissociative attachment is significant) is well over 10 nm, [11]
[12] thus limiting the ability to consistently achieve resolution at this scale.
Resolution capability
With today's electron optics, electron beam widths can routinely go down to a
few nm. This is limited mainly by
aberrations and space charge . However, the feature resolution limit is
determined not by the beam size but by forward scattering (or effective beam
broadening) in the resist while the pitch resolution limit is determined by
secondary electron travel in the resist .[13][14] This point is driven home by the
2007 demonstration of double patterning using electron beam lithography in the
fabrication of 15 nm half-pitch zone plates. [15] Although a 15 nm feature was
resolved, a 30 nm pitch was still difficult to do, due to secondary electrons
scattering from the adjacent feature. The use of double patterning allowed the
spacing between features to be wide enough for the secondary electron
scattering to be significantly reduced. The forward scattering can be decreased
by using higher energy electrons or thinner resist, but the generation of
secondary electrons is inevitable. It is now recognized that for insulating
materials like PMMA, low energy electrons can travel quite a far distance
(several nm is possible). This is due to the fact that below the
ionization potential the only energy loss mechanism is mainly through phonons
and polarons, although the latter is basically an ionic lattice effect. [16] Polaron
hopping could extend as far as 20 nm. [17] The travel distance of secondary
electrons is not a fundamentally derived physical value, but a statistical
parameter often determined from many experiments or Monte Carlo simulations
down to < 1 eV. This is necessary since the energy distribution of secondary
electrons peaks well below 10 eV. [18] Hence, the resolution limit is not usually
cited as a well-fixed number as with an optical diffraction-limited system. [13]
Repeatability and control at the practical resolution limit often require
considerations not related to image formation, e.g., resist development and
intermolecular forces.
A study by the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE)
presented at the 2013 EUVL Workshop indicated that, as a measure of electron
blur, 50-100 eV electrons easily penetrated beyond 10 nm of resist thickness
(PMMA or commercial resist); furthermore dielectric breakdown discharge is
possible.[19]
Scattering
In addition to producing secondary electrons, primary electrons from the
incident beam with sufficient energy to penetrate the resist can be multiply
scattered over large distances from underlying films and/or the substrate. This
leads to exposure of areas at a significant distance from the desired exposure
location. For thicker resist, as the primary electrons move forward, they have an
increasing opportunity to scatter laterally from the beam-defined location. This
scattering is called forward scattering . Sometimes the primary electrons are
scattered at angles exceeding 90 degrees, i.e., they no longer advance further
into the resist. These electrons are called backscattered electrons and have the
same effect as long-range flare in optical projection systems. A large enough
dose of backscattered electrons can lead to complete exposure of resist over an
area much larger than defined by the beam spot.
Proximity effect
The smallest features produced by electron-beam lithography have generally
been isolated features, as nested features exacerbate the
proximity effect , whereby electrons from exposure of an adjacent region spill
over into the exposure of the currently written feature, effectively enlarging its
image, and reducing its contrast, i.e., difference between maximum and
minimum intensity. Hence, nested feature resolution is harder to control. For
most resists, it is difficult to go below 25 nm lines and spaces, and a limit of 20
nm lines and spaces has been found.[20] In actuality, though, the range of
secondary electron scattering is quite far, sometimes exceeding 100 nm, [21]
but becoming very significant below 30 nm. [22]
The proximity effect is also manifest by secondary electrons leaving the top
surface of the resist and then returning some tens of nanometers distance away.
[23]
Proximity effects (due to electron scattering) can be addressed by solving the
inverse problem and calculating the exposure function E(x,y) that leads to a
dose distribution as close as possible to the desired dose D(x,y) when convolved
by the scattering distribution point spread function PSF(x,y) . However, it must
be remembered that an error in the applied dose (e.g., from shot noise) would
cause the proximity effect correction to fail.
Charging
Since electrons are charged particles, they tend to charge the substrate
negatively unless they can quickly gain access to a path to ground. For a high-
energy beam incident on a silicon wafer, virtually all the electrons stop in the
wafer where they can follow a path to ground. However, for a quartz substrate
such as a
photomask, the embedded electrons will take a much longer time to move to
ground. Often the negative charge acquired by a substrate can be compensated
or even exceeded by a positive charge on the surface due to secondary electron
emission into the vacuum. The presence of a thin conducting layer above or
below the resist is generally of limited use for high energy (50 keV or more)
electron beams, since most electrons pass through the layer into the substrate.
The charge dissipation layer is generally useful only around or below 10 keV,
since the resist is thinner and most of the electrons either stop in the resist or
close to the conducting layer. However, they are of limited use due to their high
sheet resistance, which can lead to ineffective grounding.
The range of low-energy secondary electrons (the largest component of the free
electron population in the resist-substrate system) which can contribute to
charging is not a fixed number but can vary from 0 to as high as 50 nm (see
section New frontiers in electron beam lithography and
extreme ultraviolet lithography ). Hence, resist-substrate charging is not
repeatable and is difficult to compensate consistently. Negative charging
deflects the electron beam away from the charged area while positive charging
deflects the electron beam toward the charged area.
Electron-beam resist performance
Due to the scission efficiency generally being an order of magnitude higher than
the crosslinking efficiency, most polymers used for positive-tone electron-beam
lithography will crosslink (and therefore become negative tone) at doses an
order of magnitude than doses used for positive tone exposure. [24] Such large
dose increases may be required to avoid shot noise effects. [25][26][27]
A study performed at the Naval Research Laboratory [28] indicated that low-
energy (10–50 eV) electrons were able to damage ~30 nm thick PMMA films.
The damage was manifest as a loss of material.
For the popular electron-beam resist ZEP-520, a pitch resolution limit of 60 nm
(30 nm lines and spaces), independent of thickness and beam energy, was
found.[29]
A 20 nm resolution had also been demonstrated using a 3 nm 100 keV electron
beam and PMMA resist. [30] 20 nm unexposed gaps between exposed lines
showed inadvertent exposure by secondary electrons.
Hydrogen silsesquioxane ( HSQ) is a negative tone resist that is capable of
forming isolated 2-nm-wide lines and 10 nm periodic dot arrays (10 nm pitch)
in very thin layers. [31] HSQ itself is similar to porous, hydrogenated SiO 2. It
may be used to etch silicon but not silicon dioxide or other similar dielectrics.
New frontiers in electron-beam lithography
To get around the secondary electron generation, it will be imperative to use
low-energy electrons as the primary radiation to expose resist. Ideally, these
electrons should have energies on the order of not much more than several eV in
order to expose the resist without generating any secondary electrons, since they
will not have sufficient excess energy. Such exposure has been demonstrated
using a scanning tunneling microscope as the electron beam source. [32] The
data suggest that electrons with energies as low as 12 eV can penetrate 50 nm
thick polymer resist. The drawback to using low energy electrons is that it is
hard to prevent spreading of the electron beam in the resist. [33] Low energy
electron optical systems are also hard to design for high resolution. [34]
Coulomb inter-electron repulsion always becomes more severe for lower
electron energy.
Scanning probe lithography. A scanning probe can be used for low-energy
electron beam lithography, offering sub-100 nm resolution, determined by the
dose of low-energy electrons.
Another alternative in electron-beam lithography is to use extremely high
electron energies (at least 100 keV) to essentially "drill" or sputter the material.
This phenomenon has been observed frequently in transmission electron
microscopy. [35] However, this is a very inefficient process, due to the
inefficient transfer of momentum from the electron beam to the material. As a
result it is a slow process, requiring much longer exposure times than
conventional electron beam lithography. Also high energy beams always bring
up the concern of substrate damage.
Interference lithography using electron beams is another possible path for
patterning arrays with nanometer-scale periods. A key advantage of using
electrons over photons in interferometry is the much shorter wavelength for the
same energy.
Despite the various intricacies and subtleties of electron beam lithography at
different energies, it remains the most practical way to concentrate the most
energy into the smallest area.
There has been significant interest in the development of multiple electron beam
approaches to lithography in order to increase throughput. This work has been
supported by
SEMATECH and start-up companies such as Multibeam Corporation, [36]
Mapper [37] and IMS. [38] However, the degree of parallelism required to be
competitive would need to be very high (at least 10 million, as estimated
above); this is far in excess of most scheduled demonstrations. A key difficulty
is that the total supplied beam current needs to be multiplied by the number of
parallel beams( e.g., 10 million), which dramatically increases cost of
ownership. Also, the field size does not change, which means increasing the
number of beams increases the strength of Coulomb interaction between beams.

X-ray lithography
X-ray lithography , is a process used in electronic industry to selectively remove
parts of a thin film. It uses X-rays to transfer a geometric pattern from a mask to
a light-sensitive chemical photoresist , or simply "resist," on the substrate. A
series of chemical treatments then engraves the produced pattern into the
material underneath the photoresist.
Mechanisms
X-ray lithography originated as a candidate for next-generation lithography for
the semiconductor industry [1] , with batches of
microprocessors successfully produced. Having short wavelengths (below 1
nm), X-rays overcome the
diffraction limits of optical lithography , allowing smaller feature sizes. If the
X-ray source isn't collimated, as with a synchrotron radiation, elementary
collimating mirrors or diffractive lenses are used in the place of the refractive
lenses used in optics. The X-rays illuminate a mask placed in proximity of a
resist-coated wafer. The X-rays are broadband, typically from a compact
synchrotron radiation source, allowing rapid exposure. Deep X-ray lithography
(DXRL) uses yet shorter wavelengths on the order of 0.1 nm and modified
procedures such as the
LIGA process, to fabricate deep and even three-dimensional structures.
The mask consists of an X-ray absorber, typically of gold or compounds of
tantalum or tungsten, on a membrane that is transparent to X-rays, typically of
silicon carbide or
diamond. The pattern on the mask is written by direct-write electron beam
lithography onto a resist that is developed by conventional semiconductor
processes. The membrane can be stretched for overlay accuracy.
Most X-ray lithography demonstrations have been performed by copying with
image fidelity (without magnification) on the line of fuzzy contrast as illustrated
in the figure. However, with the increasing need for high resolution, X-ray
lithography is now performed on what is called the "sweet spot", using local
"demagnification by bias". [2][3] Dense structures are developed by multiple
exposures with translation. The advantages of using 3x demagnification include,
the mask is more easily fabricated, the mask to wafer gap is increased, and the
contrast is higher. The technique is extensible to dense 15 nm prints.
X-rays generate secondary electrons as in the cases of extreme ultraviolet
lithography and electron beam lithography . While the fine pattern definition is
due principally to secondaries from Auger electrons with a short path length, the
primary electrons will sensitize the resist over a larger region than the X-ray
exposure. While this does not affect the pattern pitch resolution, which is
determined by wavelength and gap, the image exposure contrast
(max-min)/(max+min) is reduced because the pitch is on the order of the
primary photo-electron range. The sidewall roughness and slopes are influenced
by these secondary electrons as they can travel few micrometers in the area
under the absorber, depending on exposure X-ray energy.[4] Several prints at
about
30 nm have been published. [5]
Another manifestation of the photoelectron effect is exposure to X-ray
generated electrons from thick gold films used for making daughter masks. [6]
Simulations suggest that photoelectron generation from the gold substrate may
affect dissolution rates.
Photoelectrons, secondary electrons and Auger electrons
Secondary electrons have energies of 25 eV or less, and can be generated by
any ionizing radiation ( VUV , EUV, X-rays, ions and other electrons). Auger
electrons have energies of hundreds of electronvolts. The secondaries
(generated by and outnumbering the Auger and primary photoelectrons) are the
main agents for resist exposure.
The relative ranges of photoelectron primaries and Auger electrons depend on
their respective energies. These energies depend on the energy of incident
radiation and on the composition of the resist. There is considerable room for
optimum selection (reference 3 of the article). When Auger electrons have
lower energies than primary photoelectrons, they have shorter ranges. Both
decay to secondaries which interact with chemical bonds. [7] When secondary
energies are too low, they fail to break the chemical bonds and cease to affect
print resolution. Experiments prove that the combined range is less than 20 nm.
On the other hand, the secondaries follow a different trend below ≈30 eV: the
lower the energy, the longer the mean free path though they are not then able to
affect resist development.
As they decay, primary photo-electrons and Auger electrons eventually become
physically indistinguishable (as in Fermi–Dirac statistics ) from secondary
electrons. The range of low-energy secondary electrons is sometimes larger than
the range of primary photo-electrons or of Auger electrons. What matters for X-
ray lithography is the effective range of electrons that have sufficient energy to
make or break chemical bonds in negative or positive resists.
Lithographic electron range
X-rays do not charge. The relatively large mean free path (~20 nm) of
secondary electrons hinders resolution control at nanometer scale. In particular,
electron beam lithography suffers negative charging by incident electrons and
consequent beam spread which limits resolution. It is difficult therefore to
isolate the effective range of secondaries which may be less than 1 nm.
The combined electron mean free path results in an image blur, which is usually
modeled as a Gaussian function (where σ = blur) that is convolved with the
expected image. As the desired resolution approaches the blur, the dose image
becomes broader than the aerial image of the incident X-rays. The blur that
matters is the
latent image that describes the making or breaking of bonds during the exposure
of resist. The developed image is the final relief image produced by the selected
high contrast development process on the latent image.
The range of primary, Auger, secondary and ultralow energy higher-order
generation electrons which print (as STM studies proved) can be large (tens of
nm) or small (nm), according to various cited publications. Because this range is
not a fixed number, it is hard to quantify. Line edge roughness is aggravated by
the associated uncertainty. Line edge roughness is supposedly statistical in
origin and only indirectly dependent on mean range. Under commonly practiced
lithography conditions, the various electron ranges can be controlled and
utilized.
Charging
X-rays carry no charge, but at the energies involved, Auger decay of ionized
species in a specimen is more probable than radiative decay. High-energy
radiation exceeding the ionization potential also generates free electrons which
are negligible compared to those produced by electron beams which are
charged. Charging of the sample following ionization is an extremely weak
possibility when it cannot be guaranteed the ionized electrons leaving the
surface or remaining in the sample are adequately balanced from other sources
in time. The energy transfer to electrons as a result of ionizing radiation results
in separated positive and negative charges which quickly recombine due partly
to the long range of the Coulomb force. Insulating films like gate oxides and
resists have been observed to charge to a positive or negative potential under
electron-beam irradiation. Insulating films are eventually neutralized locally by
space charge (electrons entering and exiting the surface) at the resist-vacuum
interface and Fowler-Nordheim injection from the substrate. [8] The range of
the electrons in the film can be affected by the local electric field. The situation
is complicated by the presence of holes (positively charged electron vacancies)
which are generated along with the secondary electrons, and which may be
expected to follow them around. As neutralization proceeds, any initial charge
concentration effectively starts to spread out. The final chemical state of the
film is reached after neutralization is completed, after all the electrons have
eventually slowed down. Usually, excepting X-ray steppers, charging can be
further controlled by flood gun or resist thickness or charge dissipation layer.

Contact print
For the photolithography technique, see contact lithography .
An example of a contact print from small format film strips intended for image
review.
A contact print is a photographic
image produced from film ; sometimes from a film negative , and sometimes
from a film positive. In a darkroom an exposed and developed piece of
photographic film is placed emulsion side down, in contact with a piece of
photographic paper , light is briefly shone through the negative and then the
paper is developed to reveal the final print.
The defining characteristic of a contact print is that the resulting print is the
same size as the original, rather than having been projected through an enlarger.
Basic tools
One or more negatives are placed in intimate contact with a sheet of sensitized
photographic paper. The negative and the photographic paper are then placed,
negative side down, onto the top transparent glass plate of the exposure box.
Within the box and below the top plate is a
translucent light diffuser made from
frosted glass. Below the diffuser is a switch-controlled electric light source. A
hinged top-cover keeps the materials in close contact and reduces or eliminates
the amount of stray light allowed into the darkroom. Ansel Adams describes
procedures for making contact prints using ordinary lighting in his book, The
Print.
The contact printer is used to expose the negative's image onto the paper for a
few seconds, creating an invisible latent image on the paper. The operator may
use a manual switch and count off the seconds himself, or he may use an
electric timer switch.
The black and white gelatin-silver process may be done using a red "safe light"
for darkroom illumination. The contact printer may also contain a safe light so
that the negative can be examined before the photographic paper is laid upon it.
After exposure, the paper is processed using chemicals in the darkroom to
produce the final print. The paper must be placed in a film developer bath, a
stop bath, fixer, and finally the hypo-eliminator bath, in that order. Failure to
adhere precisely to this process will result in a poor-quality final image with a
variety of issues. [1]
Proof sheets
A 120 roll film proof sheet of
Diane Arbus ' containing her
Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park from 1962
Since this process produces neither enlargements nor reductions, the image on
the print is exactly the same size as the image on the negative. Contact prints are
used to produce proof sheets from entire rolls of 35 mm negative (from 135 film
cassettes ) and 120 (2 1 ⁄ 4 film rolls) in order to aid in the selection of images
for further enlargement, and for cataloging and identification purposes. For 120
roll film (once a common negative size for popular cameras) and larger film,
contact prints are often used to determine the final print size. In medium and
large format photography, contact prints are prized for their extreme fidelity to
the negative, with exquisite detail that can be seen with the use of a magnifying
glass . A disadvantage to using contact prints in the fine-arts is the laboriousness
of modifying exposure selectively, when the use of an
enlarger can achieve the same purpose.
Because light does not pass any significant distance through the air or through
lenses in going from the negative to the print, the contact process ideally
preserves all the detail that is present in the negative. However, the exposure
value (EV) range, the variation from darkest to lightest regions, is inherently
greater in negatives than in prints.
Finished prints
When large format film is contact printed to create finished work, it is possible,
but not easy, to use local controls to interpret the image on the negative.
"Burning" and "dodging" (either increasing the amount of light that one area of
the print receives, or decreasing the amount of light in order to achieve the ideal
tonal range in a particular area) require painstaking work with photographic
masks, or the use of a production contact printing machine (Arkay, Morse,
Burke and James are manufacturers who make contact printing machines).
Some alternative processes or non-silver processes, such as van Dyke and
cyanotype printing, must be contact printed. Medium or large format negatives
are almost always used for these types of printing. Images from smaller formats
may be transferred to a larger format negative for this purpose.
Production tools
Contact printing machines are more elaborate devices than the more familiar
and widely available contact printing frames. They typically combine in a box
the light source, intermediate glass stages, and a final glass stage for the
negative and paper to be placed upon, as well as an elastic pressure plate to keep
the negative and the paper in tight contact. Dodging can be accomplished by
placing fine tissue paper on the intermediate glass stages between the light
source and the negative/paper sandwich to modify the exposure locally. The
benefit to such time intensive techniques is the ability to then make multiple
prints with negligible variation, at full production speed.
Other uses for the technique
Contact printing was also once used in photolithography , and in printed circuit
manufacturing.
Motion picture prints are often contact printed either from an original, or a
duplicate negative.
The contact exposure process usually refers to a film negative used in
conjunction with printing paper, but the process may be used with any
transparent or translucent original image printed by contact onto a light
sensitive material. Negatives or positives on film or even paper may for various
purposes be used to make contact exposures onto different films and papers.
Intermediary products such as internegatives, interpositives, enlarged negatives,
and contrast controlling masks are often made using contact exposures.
Computer screens and other electronic display devices provide an alternative
approach to contact printing. A permanent image (negative, positive film or
transparency, or translucent original) is not used, instead the light sensitive
material is exposed directly to the display device in a dark room for a
controllable duration. [2] The resulting image generated by this mixed
digital/analogue technique has been coined "laptopogram". While limited by the
image display device resolution, which can be much inferior to film negatives,
the widespread use of electronic displays provides great potential to this
unorthodox contact printing method.
Artistic and practical considerations
Photographers praise the beautiful intermediate gray or color gradation that
results from making prints this way. Each print is necessarily the same size as
the corresponding image on the negative. This makes contact prints from large-
format negatives, especially 5×7 inch and larger, most usable for fine-art work.
Smaller contact prints, from films and formats such as 135 film cassettes, 35
mm (24×36 mm images), and 120/220 roll film (6 cm), are useful for evaluation
of exposure, composition, and subject.
It is cheaper and easier to avoid making conventional prints of all the exposures
with an enlarger; the photographer prints only the best negatives. Selection is
usually made using a loupe — a special magnifying glass with a transparent
base — to examine the tiny prints, still aligned as they are on the negative
strips. Negatives themselves can be examined with a loupe, but blacks and
whites are the reverse of what is seen through the view finder (hence: a
negative), which makes it more difficult to interpret the images. Contact sheets
can easily be stored in files in the dark, along with the negatives.
Famous photographers
Edward Weston made the most of his pictures using contact print technique.