Polymers designed for laser microstructuring

Several polymers were tested for an application of laser ablation as an alt ernative to photolithography. Tailored specialty polymers revealed the high est sensitivity to laser ablation. The most sensitive polymers are based on the photolabile triazene chromophore (-N=PIT-N drop) which is unfortunatel y also sensitive to other processing steps, e.g. wet etching. Polymers with a cinnamylidenemalonic acid ester group, showed not only a high sensitivit y but also stability to wet etching, high quality film-formation properties and high resolution ablation structures, This proves that it is possible t o apply laser ablation as alternative technique to photolithography, if the polymers are especially designed for laser ablation. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.