I've got a positive tone resist for electron beam lithography, ZEP520A. I need to spin this resist on gold surface to pattern an array of disks ranging from ~50 nm to 300 nm diameter. Generally a resist on metal has some troubles such as weak adhesion, bubbles or cracks after baking or developing. I would like to know any way to make the resist stick enough on gold. I will start with using an adhesion promoter (HMDS) that is spun in advance of ZEP spinning. Please can you give me some advices? Thanks in advance.
-Kyohei
Do not use HMDS with ZEP. It may helps. Are you baking samples (about 200C) before resist coating?
Nikolay, thanks for your comment. No, I didn't bake right before resist spinning. I baked substrates at 200C to dehydrate after cleaning substrates. I heard that pre-baking temperature is crucial. I am trying 150C instead of 180C.
Try to to apply resist right after dehydration, but not on hot surface. I have no problem to coat resist on metal surfaces. But i have never try to do this on Au.
Sounds great! Do you have any tips for cooling substrates after dehydration?
It is important to cool down slowly. You can left it on fluoroplastic surface at room tamprature for few minutes.
Ok. I will follow the tips. I appreciate your remarks and I'd like to share the results later.
Can you apply a hydrogen (mixed with nitrogen) plasma to the gold? This cleans the surface very well and increases the surface energy and improve wetting and possibly adhesion.
Hello Kyohei,
I am facing the same problem you mentioned. We tried with HMDS but didn't work properly. Did you solve it? If so, please let me know how.
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