Liu Fang-Fang, Shi Guang-Yue, Zhen Ni, Zhou Zuo-Hu, Guo Tao-Li, Qiao Yang, Zhao Jun, Liu Jin-Cheng, Luo Feng, Zhang Lei
Institute of Modern Optics, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China.
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China.
Nano Lett. 2025 Feb 5;25(5):2067-2073. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c06140. Epub 2025 Jan 26.
Rare-earth (RE) metals are known as industrial vitamins and show significant regulatory effects in many fields. In this work, we first demonstrated that the vitamin effect of RE metals can also be applied to extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Using a SnRE oxo cluster as the universal platform, different individual RE metal ions were successfully doped to obtain a series of isomorphic heterometallic clusters (RE = Y, Sm, Eu, Ho, Er). Lithography experiments have shown that the doped RE ions displayed a significant influence on technical parameters. As a result, an electron-beam lithography (EBL) line width of 11.95 nm was achieved by SnEr, and an EUV lithography critical dimension (CD) of 15.90 nm was obtained by SnHo under an exposure dose of 52.64 mJ/cm. These findings expand the applications of rare earths in high-precision semiconductor manufacturing and provide a new strategy for the development of high-resolution EUV photoresists.
稀土（RE）金属被誉为工业维生素，在许多领域都显示出显著的调控作用。在这项工作中，我们首次证明了稀土金属的维生素效应也可应用于极紫外（EUV）光刻。以SnRE氧簇为通用平台，成功掺杂了不同的单一稀土金属离子，获得了一系列同构异金属簇（RE = Y、Sm、Eu、Ho、Er）。光刻实验表明，掺杂的稀土离子对技术参数有显著影响。结果，SnEr实现了11.95 nm的电子束光刻（EBL）线宽，SnHo在52.64 mJ/cm的曝光剂量下获得了15.90 nm的EUV光刻关键尺寸（CD）。这些发现拓展了稀土在高精度半导体制造中的应用，并为高分辨率EUV光致抗蚀剂的开发提供了新策略。
