Surface roughness control by energy shift in deep X-ray lithography

 Previous studies show that the surface roughness of the sidewall generated by deep X-ray lithography (DXL) is a function of the photon energy of X-rays. Present study demonstrates and reveals the ideas of controlling surface roughness by tuning irradiation photon energy on the sidewall using the developing temperature. The ideas are resulted from two observations (1) X-rays of higher energy induce photoelectrons of higher energy in the resist and the corresponding scattering distance is nearly a square function of electron energy [1], and (2) high-energy X-rays are expected to induce more surface roughness and this effect has been observed by different laboratory [2]. Received: 10 August 2001/Accepted: 24 September 2001 Major part of this work was carried out in Hsinchu. This paper was presented at the Fourth International Workshop on High Aspect Ratio Microstructure Technology HARMST 2001 in June 2001.