Effects of developer temperature on electron-beam-exposed hydrogen silsesquioxane resist for ultradense silicon nanowire fabrication

The effects of developer temperature on hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) resist for the fabrication of ultradense silicon nanowires are reported. At higher developer temperatures, the contrast of HSQ significantly increased and sharply defined gratings were obtained. In addition, higher developer temperature provided larger processing windows for various grating periodicities. Pattern transfer with HSQ masks using both dry and wet etching processes to fabricate silicon nanowires on silicon-on-insulator substrates is demonstrated. 27-nm-period silicon nanowire arrays obtained using the high temperature development along with the two etching processes are presented and discussed. (c) 2007 American Vacuum Society.