Design and synthesis of molecular resists for high resolution patterning performance

Abstract

In this thesis, different approaches in synthesizing molecular resist are examined, and structure-property relations for the molecular resist properties are studied. This allows for design of resists that could be studied further as either negative or positive tone resists in photolithography. A series of compounds having different number of acrylate moiety, and different backbones were investigated for photoresist application. Thermal curing of acrylate compounds in organic solvent was also examined. Film shrinkage, as well as auto-polymerization was observed for these compounds that make them unsuitable as photoresist material. Furthermore, calix[4]resorcinarenes (C4MR) was chosen as backbone, and the functional groups was selected as oxetane and epoxy. Full functionalized C4MR compounds with oxetane, epoxy and allyl were synthesized. Variable-temperature NMR of C4MR-8Allyl was studied in order to get a better understanding of the structure’s conformers. Energy barrier of exchange (ΔG#) was determined from coalescence temperatures, and was 57.4 KJ/mol for aromatic and vinyl hydrogens and 62.1 KJ/mol for allylic hydrogens.