Recent advances in chemically amplified resist materials

The design of resists based on the principle of chemical amplification has provided imaging materials with remarkable sensitivity. These materials all function on the basis of photo-generation of a latent image of catalyst. In a subsequent step that is usually thermally activated, the catalyst acts on some part of the formulation to modify the solubility of the film. In most cases reported to date, the systems depend on acid that is generated by the irradiation of neutral compounds which produce acidic radiolysis products. Acid catalysis of side chain cleavage, cross-linking, and hydrolysis are but a few of the reactions that have been exploited in the design of acid catalyzed, chemically amplified resists. This paper now reports the authors` work on the use of photo-generated base in the design of resists that derive high sensitivity from base catalyzed chemical transformations. A variety of base catalyzed reactions have been auditioned for this application.