Platinum and palladium oxalates: positive-tone extreme ultraviolet resists

Abstract

Here, we present platinum and palladium mononuclear complexes with EUV photosensitivity and lithographic performance. Many platinum and palladium complexes show little or no EUV sensitivity; however, we have found that metal carbonates and metal oxalates (L2M(CO3) and L2M(C2O4); M = Pt or Pd) are sensitive to EUV. The metal carbonates give negative-tone behavior. The most interesting result is that the metal oxalates give the first positive-tone EUV resists based on mononuclear organometallic compounds. In particular, (dppm)Pd(C2O4) (dppm = 1,1-bis(diphenylphosphino)methane) (23) prints 30-nm dense lines with Esize of 50 mJ/cm2. Derivatives of (23) were synthesized to explore the relationship between the core metal and the resist sensitivity. The study showed that palladium-based resists are more sensitive than platinum-based resists. The photoreaction has been investigated for two of our most promising resists, (dppm)Pd(C2O4) (23) and (Ph2EtP)2PdC2O4 (27). Our experiments suggest the loss of CO2 and the formation of a zerovalent L4Pd complex upon exposure to light. We have identified dppm2Pd(δ(P)23:6) as the main photoproduct for (23) and (Ph2EtP)4Pd (δ(P)32:7) as the main photoproduct for (27).