Effects of thermal fluctuations and block copolymers compositions on defects in directed self-assembly hole shrink process

Abstract

We investigated the two critical defects on the directed self-assembly hole shrink process, i.e., polystyrene (PS) residue and placement error, by performing dynamic simulations with the Ohta–Kawasaki model. In the simulations, the thermal noise was added to generate stochastic variations in shape and location of the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) cylindrical domains. For the PS residue issue, we found that the volume fraction of the PMMA minor block, fPMMA, was an effective parameter, and that the PS residue could be minimized by increasing fPMMA from a conventional value of 0.30 to 0.40. On the other hand, the placement error of the PMMA cylindrical domain was affected little by the change in shape and size of the guide hole and by the connectivity to the guide bottom wall. It is speculated that the interfacial stiffness between the PMMA and PS domains would be essential to control the placement error of the PMMA cylindrical domains.