Effect of Salty Development on Forming HSQ Resist Nanodot Arrays with a Pitch of 15×15 nm2 by 30-keV Electron Beam Lithography

Abstract

We investigated the effect of ultrahigh-resolution salty (NaCl contained) development of hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) resist on forming fine dot arrays with a pitch of 15×15 nm2 by 30-keV electron beam lithography for patterned media. The optimized concentration of resist developers was determined to fabricate most packed pattern. We found that increasing the concentration of NaCl into tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) could greatly improve the resist contrast (γ-value) of HSQ. And by using 2.3 wt% TMAH/4 wt% NaCl developer, we demonstrated 15×15 nm2 pitched (3 Tbit/in.2) HSQ resist dot arrays with a dot size of < 10 nm.