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Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is the newest technology that will beused in the semiconductor industry for printing circuitry in the sub-20 nmscale. Low-energy electrons (LEEs) produced upon illumination of resistmaterials with EUV photons (92 eV) play a central role in the formation of thenanopatterns. However, up to now the details of this process are not wellunderstood. In this work, a novel experimental approach that combinesLow-Energy Electron Microscopy (LEEM), Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy(EELS), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is used to study changes induced byelectrons in the 0-40 eV range in thin films of molecular organometallic EUVresists known as tin-oxo cages. LEEM-EELS spectroscopic experiments were usedto detect surface charging upon electron exposure and to estimate the electronlanding energy. AFM post-exposure analyses revealed that irradiation of theresist with LEEs leads to the densification of the resist layer associated tocarbon loss. The same chemical processes that yield densification render thesolubility change responsible for the pattern formation in the lithographicapplication. Remarkably, electrons as low as 1.2 eV are able to induce chemicalreactions in the Sn-based resist. Based on the thickness profiles resultingfrom LEE exposures in the 3-48 mC/cm 2 dose range, a simplified reaction modelis proposed where the resist undergoes sequential chemical reactions, yieldingfirst a sparsely cross-linked network, followed by the formation of a densercross-linked network. This model allows us to estimate a maximum reactionvolume on the initial material of 0.15 nm 3 per incident electron in the energyrange studied, which means that less than 10 LEEs per molecule on average areneeded to turn the material insoluble and thus render a pattern.

Patterning Sn-based EUV resists with low-energy electrons