Encyclopedia > Photoresist

  Article Content

Photoresist

Photoresist is a light sensitive material used in the process of Photolithography to form a patterned coating on a surface. Photoresists are classified into two groups, positive resists, in which the exposed areas become more sensitive to chemical etching and are removed in the developing process, and negative resists, in which the exposed areas become resistant to chemical etching, so the unexposed areas are removed during the developing process.

One very common positive (I, G, H-line) photoresist is based on a mixture of Diazonaphthoquinone (DNQ) and Novolac resin. DNQ inhibits the dissolution of the novolac resin, however upon exposure to light the dissolution rate increases even beyond that of pure novolac. The mechanism by which unexposed DNQ inhibits novolac dissolution is not well understood, but is believed to be related to hydrogen bonding(or more exactly diazocoupling in the unexposed region). DNQ-novolac resists are developed by dissolution in a basic solution (usually 0.26N tetra-methyl ammonium hydroxide in water).

Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) resist are typically polyhydroxystyrene-based polymers with a photoacid generator providing the solubility change. However, this material does not experience the diazocoupling.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
U.S. presidential election, 1804

... presidential election, 1804 Presidential CandidateElectoral Vote Party Running Mate(Electoral Votes) Thomas Jeffers ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 57.5 ms