Wide area soft vacuum abnormal glow electron beam discharge hardening process
First Claim
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1. A resist hardening process for hardening a previously patterned resist layer on a substrate, the process comprising:
- positioning a substrate having a previously patterned resist layer thereon in a vacuum chamber;
evacuating the vacuum chamber with a selected gas to a selected pressure level;
producing a wide area pulsed abnormal glow electron beam discharge from a cold cathode abnormal glow discharge electron gun positioned within the vacuum chamber, said pulsed abnormal glow electron beam discharge being pulsed from a first current level to a higher second current level; and
exposing the previously patterned resist layer on the substrate to the wide area pulsed abnormal glow electron beam discharge for a predetermined number of pulses.
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Abstract
A process for large area hardening of photoresists or polymer films placed on substrates is disclosed. The process requires the use of a short duration (<1 us.) pulsed electron beam produced in soft vacuum by an abnormal glow discharge. The pulsed electron beam interacts with the patterned photoresist/polymer resist so as to harden or stabilize the patterns thereon by electron induced cross-linking. The use of a soft vacuum environment allows for both thermal as well as chemically induced hardening.
18 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A resist hardening process for hardening a previously patterned resist layer on a substrate, the process comprising:
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positioning a substrate having a previously patterned resist layer thereon in a vacuum chamber; evacuating the vacuum chamber with a selected gas to a selected pressure level; producing a wide area pulsed abnormal glow electron beam discharge from a cold cathode abnormal glow discharge electron gun positioned within the vacuum chamber, said pulsed abnormal glow electron beam discharge being pulsed from a first current level to a higher second current level; and exposing the previously patterned resist layer on the substrate to the wide area pulsed abnormal glow electron beam discharge for a predetermined number of pulses. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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Specification