Photomasks with antistatic control

Abstract

Abstract In high resolution lithography, resolution impairment sometimes occurs due to dust collecting on the mask. The dust is often attracted to the mask by static electricity. The solution proposed is to coat the entire photomask with a transparent, electrically conductive coating. The coating is electrically grounded to drain static charge. Conductive materials are often used for lithographic masks, but the patterns cannot be grounded effectively because there are island regions in the pattern. If the pattern is itself conducting, there is the added option of applying the antistatic layer under the pattern. If the pattern is formed of a photographic emulsion of a patterned photoresist, it is protected from damage and wear in handling by the harder conductive coating.

Inventors

• 👤 David Bruce Fraser

Bibliographic Details