Marie Krysak, Intel Corporation – Monday, April 21, 2014, 3:00pm, 212 Kearney

Investigation of metal-oxide based nanoparticle resists for EUV lithography

Abstract:
The semiconductor industry has been driven by Moore’s law, which states that the number of transistors on integrated circuits will double approximately every two years. A key factor in the continued scaling of transistors is the use of lithography to pattern various device features. The industry has consistently developed new lithographic exposure tools, using shorter wavelengths to achieve higher resolution patterns. One promising candidate for next-generation lithography and the extension of Moore’s Law is extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). Resist materials innovation is required to enable the use of EUVL in production. This talk will focus on our efforts to assess metal oxide-based nanoparticles as novel EUV resists, and their potential advantages over organic-based chemically amplified resists. Spectroscopic techniques such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) were used to probe the patterning mechanism of these materials. Resist formulations have been evaluated using EUV exposures. These results and the mechanistic insights they provide will be discussed.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Krysak is currently a process engineer in the Components Research department at Intel Corporation. She is in the novel materials group, focusing on research areas essential to pushing the limits of innovation for the semiconductor industry. She received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry in 2007 from Rochester institute of Technology, and her masters and PhD in Chemistry in 2012 from Cornell University.

Guest Blogger: Mike Lerner

Dr. Lerner's booth before the other staffers arrived.  (photo courtesy of Mike Lerner)
Dr. Lerner’s booth before the other staffers arrived. (photo courtesy of Mike Lerner)

I attended the 31st International Battery Seminars in March. One the one hand, I presented a short review of current academic research on graphene in energy storage applications. My conclusions were that “gen-2” graphenes, with tailored functional edges and basal surfaces, present a possible route towards dense, electrically and thermally conductive composite hierarchical structures for battery or supercapacitor electrodes. And also that this is no secret, there is a lot of research activity ongoing all over the globe.

On the other hand, I manned an OSU exhibitor booth extolling the virtues of our soon-to-be-offered online course called “Chemistry and Materials of Batteries and Supercapacitors”.  There was an encouraging level of interest from large and small companies, governmental agencies, and other academics. I hope we’ll get a mix of students from these sources; among other advantages it will make for interesting class discussions.

Finally, the conference itself was fantastic. One could feel, almost palpably, the pull from industry for better batteries to meet the demands of the electric vehicle and smart grid markets. At the same time, we heard from many contributors that the existing technology and its logical extensions will not likely get us there — that major and fundamental advances in materials and chemistry are needed. What does this all mean? For one thing, it’s a very good time to be a battery chemist!