Metallic resist for phase-change lithography.

Currently, the most widely used photoresists in optical lithography are organic-based resists. The major limitations of such resists include the photon accumulation severely affects the quality of photolithography patterns and the size of the pattern is constrained by the diffraction limit. Phase-change lithography, which uses semiconductor-based resists such as chalcogenide Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ films, was developed to overcome these limitations. Here, instead of chalcogenide, we propose a metallic resist composed of Mg₅₈Cu₂₉Y₁₃ alloy films, which exhibits a considerable difference in etching rate between amorphous and crystalline states. Furthermore, the heat distribution in Mg₅₈Cu₂₉Y₁₃ thin film is better and can be more easily controlled than that in Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ during exposure. We succeeded in fabricating both continuous and discrete patterns on Mg₅₈Cu₂₉Y₁₃ thin films via laser irradiation and wet etching. Our results demonstrate that a metallic resist of Mg₅₈Cu₂₉Y₁₃ is suitable for phase change lithography, and this type of resist has potential due to its outstanding characteristics.