Stratified polymer dissolution model based on impedance data from quartz crystal microbalance method

Abstract

In lithography, the development process is essential for achieving high fidelity. The quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) method is a primary tool for analyzing the dissolution kinetics of resist polymers by measuring their frequency and impedance. However, impedance charts are underutilized. We propose a stratified polymer dissolution model (SPDM) to simulate polymer dissolution in developers and analyze QCM charts. Using SPDM, we accurately reproduced both the frequency and impedance charts. The feature values describing the dissolution kinetics were successfully extracted from the QCM charts, enabling the investigation of the effects of developers on dissolution kinetics.

Keywords

• dissolution kinetics
• chemically amplified resist
• quartz crystal microbalance
• lithography process
• poly(4-hydroxystyrene)