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Non-alkyl tin-oxo clusters as new-type patterning materials for nanolithography

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Abstract

Nanolithography plays crucial roles in the miniaturization of dense integrated circuit, which extremely depends on innovative resist materials. Recently, metal-containing resists have been explored due to their higher short-wavelength photon absorption than traditional polymer resists. Herein, for the first time, the patterning performance of non-alkyl tin-oxo clusters has been evaluated. Meanwhile, the influence of structural characteristics on resolution and sensitivity has been investigated. To evaluate the surface ligand effect, three non-alkyl Sn10-oxo clusters with the same core were functionalized with pyrazole, 3-methylpyrazole and 4-methylpyrazole, respectively. Furthermore, another Sn14-oxo cluster with similar core configuration was also prepared using 4-methylpyrazole ligand to study the influence of Sn nuclearity. Spin-coating method was then applied to fabricate thin films of these non-alkyl tin-oxo clusters on Si substrate, which showed various thicknesses and roughnesses. More interestingly, electron beam lithography (EBL) patterning studies indicated that for the same Sn10 core, the 4-methylpyrazole-decorated clusters showed the best performance. As for the different cluster cores with the same 4-methylpyrazole ligand, the patterns of Sn10 with the higher ligand:Sn ratio are also better than those of Sn14. Finally, distinguishable 50 nm resolution was achieved by 4-methylpyrazole-decorated Sn10 at expose energy of 100 μC/cm2 which can be significantly improved by increasing expose energy to 1,000 μC/cm2 as confirmed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) images. This work not only opens the nanolithography applications of non-alkyl tin-oxo clusters, but also provides an effective structural methodology for improving their patterning performance in future.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21922111, 91961108). We appreciate Ling-Ling Zheng for SEM measurements and Dan-Mei Pan for AFM measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, 350002, China

    Di Wang, Xiaofeng Yi & Lei Zhang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Di Wang

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  1. Di Wang
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  2. Xiaofeng Yi
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  3. Lei Zhang
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Correspondence to Lei Zhang.

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Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Supporting information The supporting information is available online at http://chem.scichina.com and http://link.springer.com/journal/11426. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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Wang, D., Yi, X. & Zhang, L. Non-alkyl tin-oxo clusters as new-type patterning materials for nanolithography. Sci. China Chem. 65, 114–119 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-021-1092-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-021-1092-2

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