Use of trilevel resists for high-resolution soft-x-ray projection lithography

A projection optical system with 20:1 reduction has been used with radiation at ∼36 nm to evaluate resists for use in soft-x-ray projection lithography. The high absorption of soft x rays by carbon-based polymers requires that an imaging resist layer be very thin. The sensitivities and contrasts of several such resists are reported. By incorporating a thin imaging layer into a trilayer resist scheme, we have exposed, developed, and transferred features as small as 0.2 μm into silicon.