Highly Tunable Block Copolymer Self-assembly for Nanopatterning

Nanoscale block copolymer (BCP) patterns have been pursued for applications in sub-30 nm nanolithography. BCP self-assembly processing is scalable and low cost, and is well-suited for integration with existing semiconductor fabrication techniques. However, one of the major technical challenges for BCP self-assembly is limited tunability in pattern geometry, dimension, and functionality. We suggest methods for extending the degree of tunability by choosing highly incompatible polymer blocks and utilizing solvent vapor treatment techniques. Siloxane BCPs have been developed as self-assembling resists due to many advantages such as high etch-selectivity, good etch-resistance, long-range ordering, and reduced line-edge roughness. The large incompatibility leads to extensive degree of pattern tunability since the effective volume fraction can be easily manipulated by solvent-based treatment techniques. Thus, control of the microdomain size, periodicity, and morphology is possible by changing the vapor pressure and the mixing ratio of selective solvents. This allows a range of different pattern geometry such as dots, lines and holes and critical dimension simply by changing the processing conditions of a given block copolymer without changing a polymer chain length. We demonstrate highly extensive tunability (critical dimension ~6~30 nm) of self-assembled patterns prepared by a siloxane BCP with extreme incompatibility.