Conducting polyanilines: applications in computer manufacturing

Polyaniline is shown to be a high resolution conducting resist with the use of onium salts. Upon exposure to ultra-violet radiation or to an e-beam, the onium salts decompose to generate protonic acids which in turn dope the polyaniline. A solubility difference is created between the unexposed (undoped) and exposed (doped) regions resulting in patterns of conducting lines. 0.25 μm lines were attained with e-beam irradiation. Polyaniline was also shown to be an effective discharge layer for e-beam lithography. Zero pattern displacements are observed when polyaniline is used as a thin coating below the imaging resist whereas, greater than 5 μm displacements are observed in the absence of a conducting coating. In addition, polyaniline was shown to eliminate charging during the high resolution SEM inspection and dimensional measurements of x-ray and optical masks when a thin film is spin-coated on the mask. In contrast to the commonly used metal deposition techniques, the polyaniline can be easily and completely removed without any damage to the mask.