Keywords
Lithography
Block copolymers
Self-assembly
Plasma etching
Lab description
The “Laboratoire des Technologies de la Microélectronique” (LTM) is a public research laboratory associated to the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, affiliated to “Institut des sciences de l’ingénierie et des systems”) and to Grenoble Alpes University. It was founded in 1999 and is hosted within the CEA-LETI-MINATEC campus (10,000 m2 of cleanrooms, 2400 researcher, 1200 students and 600 industrials working on micro and nanotechnologies). Its staff is composed of 30 permanent scientists / lecturers / professors, 18 technicians and engineers, 31 PhDs and 16 post-doctoral members. The main goal of LTM is to contribute to the material and technology developments needed for nanoelectronics and nanotechnology applications.
Background
Block copolymers are one class of polymeric materials consisting of at least two blocks of different types. Depending on the relative affinity of these blocks and their respective molecular weights, it is possible to create periodic patterns of high resolution on the surface of a substrate by self-assembly. The control of this self-assembly and its combination with conventional photolithography is a very promising approach for the realization of certain lithographic technological steps in microelectronics.
Job description
The copolymer PS-b-PMMA is already seriously considered for integration in microelectronics and is likely to meet some resolution needs, for example for the dimension reduction of contact holes of the most aggressive contact levels. Nevertheless, for sub-10 nm nodes, other copolymers with higher chemical contrasts (called « high- ») between the two blocs should be used. The associated lower affinity between the two blocks is not only an advantage for higher resolutions, but also facilitates the removal of one block relative to the other to create the lithography mask. However, this also causes difficulties for the use and self-organization of these thin film materials (preferential wetting of one block to a surface or interface, difficulty in creating neutral surfaces (i.e. surfaces having equivalent wetting for the two blocks), difficult control of the thermodynamic stability of these materials in thin films and eventually use of non-standard solvent annealing processes to generate self-organization).
LTM and LETI, in close collaboration with the company ARKEMA, are working on the development and integration of new high- block copolymers compatible with a microelectronics industrial environment. The requested work for this position is to participate to this work. In particular, most promising lamellar materials have to be evaluated and their integration schemes by “chemo-epitaxy” have to be developed. For this, an important part of the work consists in developing dedicated surface treatments to control microscopic morphologies. In the meantime, the development of associated plasma etching processes and the extension of this work up to full 300 mm diameter wafer has to be pursued.
Required / appreciated competences
- Technological work in a microelectronics environment (lithography, plasma etching, deposition…)
- Surface characterization / surface chemistry, XPS, DSC, ATG Metrology, SEM, (S)TEM, AFM
Collaborations within the project
This job is financed through the French FUI project REX-7. Main collaborations will include ARKEMA, CEA-LETI MINATEC (work in CEA-LETI cleanrooms) and LCPO-Bordeaux.
Contact
Laboratoire des Technologies de la Microélectronique (UMR 5129)
Université Grenoble Alpes / CNRS
CEA-LETI-MINATEC campus
17 rue des Martyrs
38000 Grenoble, France
Marc ZELSMANN
Phone: +33438789292
Email: marc.zelsmann@cea.fr
