This Is AuburnElectronic Theses and Dissertations

Step-width Adjustment and Sidewall Control in Electron-beam Lithography

Date

2010-11-16

Author

Li, Pengcheng

Type of Degree

thesis

Department

Electrical Engineering

Abstract

Two-dimensional (2-D) patterns and three-dimensional (3-D) structures increasingly find applications in various devices such as diffractive optical elements, photonic element, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) etc. and are often fabricated by e-beam lithography. Their performance is known to be highly sensitive to their dimensions. Therefore, it is critical to achieve high dimensional accuracy for the desired characteristics. However, as the feature size decreases down to nanoscale, the non-ideal exposure distribution due to electron scattering can make dimensions of the fabricated features in a device substantially different from the target dimensions. In this thesis, the issue of controlling the dimensions of the features transferred onto the resist layer is addressed for the staircase structures and the line patterns. The remaining resist profile estimated from the 3-D exposure distribution is employed in the optimization procedure in order to obtain realistic results. The results from the experiments and extensive simulation study are analyzed.