Incorporation of polyhedral oligosilsesquioxane in chemically amplified resists to improve their reactive ion etching resistance

A chemically amplified (CA) methacrylate resist containing polyhedral oligo silsesquioxane (POSS) has been synthesized by AIBN-initiated free radical p olymerization. While the polymer of low POSS concentrations showed Little i mprovement in reactive ion etching (RIE) resistance, incorporation of 20.5 wt % of the POSS monomer into methacrylate-based CA resists significantly i mproved their RIE resistance in the O-2 plasma. High-resolution transmissio n electron microscopy revealed that the RIE resistance improvement was due to the formation of rectangular crystallite-constituting; networks of the s ilica cages uniformly distributed within the polymer matrix. (C) 2001 Ameri can Vacuum Society.