Development of plant-based resist materials in electron beam lithography

Electron beam lithography has great potential for future production of nano-imprint templates, light-emitting diodes, solar cell devices, actuators, biosensors, and micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) where continued success ultimately requires improvements in current processing technologies. Electron beam lithography is promising for advancing multiple electronic applications due to several advantages such as high resolution, deep depth of focus, flexibility in material design, and assumable cost. This study presents progress in the development of a new plant-based resist material (TPU-EBR1) to achieve high exposure sensitivity and lower film thickness shrinkage by electron beam irradiation. Highly efficient crosslinking properties and high quality patterning line images were provided by specific process conditions of 30 keV electron beam lithography. Lower film thickness shrinkage of the newly developed TPU-EBR than that of the referenced acrylate type resist material is one of key to achieve EB patterning. The validity of our approach using the developed TPU-EBR was confirmed experimentally. In addition, this new approach was demonstrated to apply glucose and dextrin derivatives as the eco-friendlier compounds to the resist materials in micro and nano-patterning processes for environmentally-compatible electronic device fabrications.