Refractive index change during exposure for 193-nm chemically amplified resists

Abstract

Some of the important areas to be improved for lithography simulation are getting correct exposure parameters and determining the change of refractive index. It is known that the real and imaginary refractive indices are changed during exposure. We obtained these refractive index changes during exposure for 193 nm chemically amplified resists. The variations of the transmittance as well as the resist thickness were measured during ArF excimer laser exposure. We found that the refractive index change is directly related to the concentration of the photo acid generator and de-protected resin. It is important to know the exact values of acid concentration from the exposure parameters since a small difference in acid concentration magnifies the variation in the amplified de-protection during post exposure bake. We developed and used a method to extract Dill ABC exposure parameters for 193 nm chemically amplified resist from the refractive index change upon exposure.