PAPER PRESENTATION

REPORT
Thermal Probe Maskless Lithography

R Anjali
M.tech student (Nanoelectronics)
Enrollment no.77801
Special Centre for Nanoscience , Jawaharlal Nehru University JNU
 Thermal Probe Maskless Lithography
R Anjali
M.tech student (Nanoelectronics)
Special Centre for Nanoscience ,Jawaharlal Nehru University JNU

Abstract— Fabrication of nanoscale devices requires mask-less techniques. Maskless techniques enable prototyping of ultimately
scaled devices and fabricating masters and mask for nanoimprint and for high-volume lithography. Thermal Probe Maskless
Lithography is one of the maskless lithography techniques with minimal substrate interference and proximity effects. It is a serial,
mask-less and direct-write lithography technique, where a cantilever structure of heatable ultra-sharp silicon tip is brought into
contact with a special resist to locally decompose and evaporate the resist.

1. INTRODUCTION electrostatic pull-in force. Modulating the force voltage

controls deflection of the probe and the penetration
The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and atomic depth.
force microscope (AFM), probe-based microscopes
techniques revolutionized the ability to image materials 3. LITHOGRAPHY PROCESS
and topography down to the nanometer, and even
subatomic scales[1]. Compared to electron-beam Process can take place in ambient conditions. And the
imaging and patterning instruments, scanning probe process involves pattering the resist using the hot
instruments generally have a much simpler design. The probe, and subsequent etching.
high resolution and comparative simplicity of the
3.1 Pattering Resist
instrument are also attractive properties to explore
probe-based lithography approaches. Lithography processs involves topography pattering of
self-amplified resist such as PPA. PPA decompose in
Thermal Probe maskless lithography is based on heat
to monomers at or near its glass-transition temperature
transfer mechanism, where thermal decomposition and
of 140˚C. The pattern is written into PPA, which forms
evaporation of resist material is used for pattering.
the top layer. Below the PPA there is a thin inorganic
Heated tips, brought in contact with an organic resist
hard-mask material and an organic hard-mask.
such as polyphthalaldehyde (PPA), trigger the self-
amplified depolymerization of the resist into the
gaseous phase.[2]

2. PRINCIPLE OF WORKING

It uses a heated probe for structuring of the resist

material such as polyphthalaldehyde PPA .The hot
probe is used to decompose and evaporate the resist
locally, thereby creating arbitrary pattern in the resist.
The heated resist decomposed into volatile molecules Fig2. Lithography process (A) substrate, (B) organic hard mask, (C)
that evaporate, leaving tiny holes in the resist. hard mask, and (D) polyphthalaldehyde resist.

organic hard-mask material forms the first layer on the

work piece substrate .Over it , a thin layer of inorganic
mask material such as silicon dioxide is deposited. The
thickness of the inorganic hard mask must be optimum.
It should be sufficient to withstand the RIE into the
underlying organic hard-mask layer, also thin enough
to allow transfer of only the high resolution part of the
PPA layer.
Fig1.Principle of working

Finally, the top layer involves spin coating of PPA. The

As illustrated in Fig. 1,voltage is applied between the
layer depends on thickness of the underlying layer and
probe and the work piece substrate generates an

1
the etch rate contrast between the materials. After spin profiles that are 7−12 nm deep and do not extend to the
coating, a moderate 3-minute long soft bake is bottom of the resist. In a first step of pattern transfer
necessary to remove most of the solvent from the film. PPA layer is thinned down to a thickness of 4 ± 0.5 nm
using a 1:4 ratio O2/N2 plasma.
The probes used for heating are either resistive (Joule)
or thermoelectric (Thomson) heating. The I-V
characteristics of the resistive heating element
determine the temperature of the heater. The main
energy transport process to the substrate is conduction
through the tip. At temperatures of up to 1000 °C the
resist (polyphthalaldehyde, PPA) evaporates very
efficiently and quickly (in less than 2 µs) without
residues or contamination, leaving a tiny hole in the
resist with the same geometry as the tip.

The heat flow into the contact point between tip and
surface depends on the exact tip geometry. Because,
conical tip shape also has a thermal resistance
associated with it. Topographical patterning requires
sharp tips with a small opening angle to maximize
patterning resolution and minimize depth-dependent
pixel broadening.

3.2 Etching process Fig3. Schematic of the process flow[2]

Etching process begins with removal of the residual
layer of PPA below the pattern.(Fig. 2, Panel 2). Best
results are achieved with an oxygen plasma as etchant.
Once the surface of the silicon oxide is exposed, a
fluorocarbon etch opens the inorganic hard mask (Fig.
2, Panel 3). For a SiO2 hard mask, best results are
achieved with a CHF3/Ar-based RIE.The next step is
the enhancement of the aspect ratio into the organic
hard-mask layer (Fig. 2, Panel 4). If the inorganic hard
mask is an oxide,best results are achieved with an
oxygen-based RIE.Finally, the pattern is transferred
from the organic hard mask into the substrate (Fig. 2,
Panel 5).
In a second step, the SiO2 in the exposed areas of the
hard-mask is removed using CHF3 RIE. Thus the
original shallow relief pattern is transformed into a
high carbon content polymer for the final O2 RIE
pattern transfer.
SEM imaging and Line edge roughness (LER) is
depicted of the resultant pattern.
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 SEM

4. METHODOLOGY AND EXPERIMENT

Lithography is used for creating lithographic patterns

with 27.5 nm half-pitch line density in a 50 nm thick
high carbon content organic resist on a Si substrate.

Methodology involves stack structure, where first

layer of 50 nm of a high carbon content polymer
deposited. In a second step, a 4 nm thick layer of SiO2
is deposited onto the polymer layer by means of RF-
magnetron sputtering at room temperature. In a last
step, a 20 nm PPA resist layer spin coated for
thermomechanical patterning.
Patterns consisting of groove and inverted ridge
structures Fig3. are written into the PPA resist using
a hot tip with an apex radius of 5 nm to locally
evaporate the resist. Patterns generated produce sloped
Fig4.SEM micrograph [2]
As a final fabrication, used the patterned polymer mask
is used for fabricating 50 nm deep structures in the Si
substrate wafer by means of SF6 RIE. The result of the
final fabrication step is shown in Fig4. The width of the
trench and ridge structures are as expected from the
corresponding mask dimensions.
2
 5.2 Line edge roughness (LER) without prior fabrication of a mask template; reducing
production cost.

7. DEMERITS

In Thermal Probe Maskless Lithography, the transfer

of a pattern in PPA is more complex due to the sloped
sidewalls of the pattern in PPA, the shallow depth of
the lithographic patterns in the PPA resist, the fact that
a residual layer is left at the bottom of the written
structures.

Fig5.SEM micrograph for Line egde roughness [2]
W1−W14 indicate the width of the grooves in pixel
units. The line edge contour from the SEM image
shown in Fig5 is set to the pixel positions inside the
grooves at 80% of the maximum intensity level.
CONCLUSION
The major advantage of Thermal probe maskless
lithography is its ability to operate in ambient
conditions and to allow in situ non-destructive
inspection. In addition to advantageous over other
techniques, it has demonstrated an overlay accuracy of
better than 5 nm and the capability to fabricate 3D
depth profiles with nanometer scale accuracy. Recent
studies[3] showed that the resolution is highest for
shallow patterns which pose a challenge for
transferring the patterns into functional structures. In
one of their recent works they have developed and
optimized a versatile three-layer stack that is able to
transfer sub-20 nm lateral and 5 nm vertical amplitude
thermal probe maskless lithography patterns into a
substrate.

References
Fig6. Root-mean-square line edge roughness [2]
[1]
The result showed that root mean-square (rms) line
edge roughness (LER) is depicted in Fig6. It is
[2]
consistently found 1.5 times lower values of the LER
for the upper edge than for the lower one.
C. Dislocations, “r 1982,” vol. 49, no. 1, pp.
57–61, 1982.
L. L. Cheong et al., “Thermal Probe Maskless
Lithography for 27.5 nm Half-Pitch Si
Technology,” 2013.

Also the LER is lowest for the one pixel wide groove
increasing by approximately 30% for the grooves with
a width. Hence resolution is highest for shallow
patterns.
6. MERITS
Thermal probe maskless lithography is Closed Loop
Lithography process. With the tip in its cold state, the
topography of each patterned line is read back. A
second micro-heater reads the distance to the surface
by means of heat conduction through the air. The
measured sub-nm deviations from the target are then
used as feedback for the running patterning process.
Thus, accurate control with unmatched precision of the
patterning depth and in-situ metrology are achieved.
[3] Y. Kyoung et al., “Sub-10 Nanometer Feature
Size in Silicon Using Thermal Scanning Probe
Lithography,” 2017.
Bibliography
[1]. Szoszkiewicz R,Okada T et al. “ High-speed,
sub15 nm feature size thermochemical
nanolithography”. Nano Letter 2007.
[2]. Knoll AW et al. “Closed-loop high-speed 3D
thermal probe nanolithography”. Proceeding
SPIE 2014.

A mask-less lithography method, where patterns can be

defined in software and written directly into the resist