Glasses for lithography

The highest resolution in a lithographic process is often determined by the properties of the resist material. With the currently used polymeric resists, a resolution of better than 100 nm has been achieved under manufacturing conditions, but the future nanoscale devices will require a 10 times superior resolution. In this paper we present an overview of the resist materials, especially with regard to limiting resolution. In principle, inorganic resists should have higher limiting resolution than polymer resists due to smaller fundamental structural units and stronger bonds in the former. However, compositional and/or structural inhomogeneities may limit their ultimate resolution. New results are presented that indicate chalcogenide glasses as promising photo and electron beam resists, which also have the advantages of greater hardness, resistance to acids, easy fabrication in thin film form, and the unique phenomena like radiation enhanced diffusion.