Photo-nanoimprint lithography combined with thermal treatment to improve resist patternline-edge roughness

Abstract

We prepared a standard resist pattern to evaluate critical-dimension atomic-forcemicroscopy (CD-AFM) by photo-nanoimprint lithography using a trilayer resist system.Standard patterns require low line-edge roughness (LER), which is an importantfactor in the accuracy of high-precision CD-AFM. However, LER can easily beincreased during the dry etching necessary in the trilayer resist process. The LER offinal standard patterns was 2.5 nm (1 sigma), which was made using a mould ofwhich the LER is 2.2 nm. We thermally treated the standard resist patterns toreduce the LER; the LER improved from 2.5 to 1.2 nm with the thermal treatment.