Analysis of EUV resist outgassing depended on the dosage

The suppression of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photoresist-related outgassing is one of the challenges in high-volume manufacturing with EUV lithography (EUVL), because it contributes to the contamination of the EUV scanner mirror optics, resulting in reflectivity loss. Witness sample pragmatic outgas qualification has been developed into the general method for clarifying commercially available, chemically amplified resists. Preliminary results have suggested a linear correlation between contamination thickness in the electron-beam-based and the EUV-based evaluation systems. In fact, a positive relationship was observed between contamination thickness and exposure dose. However, recent experiments indicate that in some resists, this relationship is not linear. In the present study, a resist outgas model is proposed and tested to investigate the contamination thickness’ dependency on exposure dose. The model successfully explains the experimental outgas phenomenon. It is estimated that increasing exposure dose, in resists with low activation energies (Ea) in deprotection reactions, results in extreme increase in contamination thickness. Furthermore, the low-Ea resists have high contamination risk when exposure is extensive.