THE EFFECT OF DISSOLUTION INHIBITORS ON T HE DISSOLUTION CHARACTERISTICS OF A CHEMICALLY AMPLIFIED 3-COMPONENT POSITIVE RESIST

For chemically amplified electron beam (EB) resists composed of partia lly tert-butoxycarbonyl(tBOC)-protected poly(p-vinylphenol) (PVP), a d issolution inhibitor, and an acid generator, effects of the dissolutio n inhibitors on the dissolution characteristics of the resist are inve stigated. The dissolution inhibitors become dissolution promoters afte r exposure. We tried to increase the dissolution rate of the resist in the exposed area using dissolution promoters. We estimated the dissol ution rate by using a model-composition resist which consisted of PVP as the matrix resin and benzoic acid derivatives as dissolution promot ers. We evaluated the relationships between the acidity of benzoic aci d derivatives and the dissolution rate of the model-composition resist s. The higher the concentration of the benzoic acid derivatives is, th e higher the dissolution rate of the model-composition resist. The dis solution rate of the model-composition resist increases linearly with the increase in acidity of the dissolution promoter. A dissolution pro moter with high acidity increases the dissolution rate of a resist in the exposed area.