A strategy to fabricate nanostructures with sub-nanometer line edge roughness

Line edge roughness (LER) has been an important issue in the nanofabrication research, especially in integrated circuits. Despite numerous research studies has made efforts on achieving smaller LER value, a strategy to achieve sub-nanometer level LER still remain challenging due to inability to deposit energy with a profile of sub-nanometer LER. In this work, we use scanning helium ion beam to expose hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) resist on SiNx membrane and present the 0.16 nm spatial imaging resolution based on this suspended thin membrane geometric construction, which is characterized by scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM). The suspended membrane serves as an energy filter of helium ion beam and due to the elimination of backscattering induced secondary electrons, we can systematically study the factors that influences the LER of the fabricated nanostructures. Furthermore, we explore the parameters including step size, designed exposure linewidth (DEL), delivered dosage and resist thickness and choosing the high contrast developer, the process window allows to fabricate lines with 0.2nm LER is determined. AFM measurement and simulation work further reveal that at specific beam step size and DEL, the nanostructures with minimum LER can only be fabricated at specific resist thickness and dosage.&#xD.