Surface modification of the MoSiON phase shift mask to reduce critical dimension variation

•Plasma exposure or furnace annealing to reduce variation of critical dimension.•Both O2 and N2 plasma treatment produced large variation of critical dimension.•NH3 annealing suppressed etching of the MoSiON layer and variation of critical dimension.•Increase of O at.% without changing the transition layer thickness after NH3 annealing. Phase shift masks (PSMs) were introduced to extend the limits of optical lithography. However, cleaning a MoSiON-based PSM pattern with an ammonium hydroxide/hydrogen peroxide mixture (APM), although efficient at cleaning the PSM pattern, etches the PSM layer, inducing changes in the phase angle and transmittance due to the introduction of variation of the critical dimension (CD). In this study, we investigated the effects of plasma treatment and furnace annealing on the etching of the MoSiON PSM in APM. In particular, we found that the etch behavior and surface chemical state after each treatment were correlated. We also compared variations in the CD between patterned PSM layers and blank masks. After O2 or N2 plasma treatment, the top surface of MoSiON had a thicker transition layer with an extreme increase in O, and a huge variation in CD was also observed after APM treatment. However, CD variation of the patterned MoSiON layer was minimal when the sample was first annealed in NH3 ambient gas and then subjected to APM treatment. This phenomenon may be related to an increase in the portion of the SiO2-like state at the top surface of the MoSiON PSM layer and its optimization without a change in the transition layer thickness.