"Non-destructive" dimensional metrology of EUV resist gratings (Conference Presentation)

New critical dimension metrology methods such as critical dimension small angle X-ray scattering (CDSAXS) are being developed to meet the measurement challenges of next generation devices. Two key requirements for any new CD metrology method are non-destructiveness and the measurement speed. We will report on a study of beam damage and scattering strength of two model photoresist systems, HSQ and PMMA. We also will report on the status and initial results from NIST’s upgraded lab CDSAXS system. 50 nm pitch line gratings were fabricated in HSQ and PMMA films using EUV interference lithography at the Swiss Light Source. The lines were about 30 nm tall and 20-30 nm wide. The 17 keV CDSAXS exposure time was varied from 0.1 s to 60 s to determine the minimum X-ray exposure required to obtain a satisfactory fit. Normal incident measurements separated by a blanket X-ray exposure were repeated to measure the decrease in scattering intensity with X-ray dose. The PMMA scattering signal was found to decrease by about 80 % before stabilizing at around 15 % of the original scattering intensity. The HSQ scattering signal decreased much less and stabilized at about 80 % of the original scattering intensity. We also conducted a series of variable-angle CDSAXS measurements as a function of blanket X-ray exposure to determine how the shape of the photoresist lines changed during X-ray exposure. For PMMA, we found the line width to remain constant and the line height to decrease from 25 nm to 10 nm during the exposure series. The exposures that damaged the samples corresponded to several hours of exposure to the synchrotron beam in a 100 µm spot and were much longer than what was required to characterize the line gratings. Smaller targets result in a larger dose and could potentially damage the resist in the time required to make a CDSAXS measurement. The large differences in beam damage between PMMA and HSQ show that resist damage from CDSAXS will depend on the particular resist chemistries and target size.