NSF TTP-T: Advancing Solvent-Free Metal-Imidazolate Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Photoresist Technology Towards Commercialization for Microelectronic Device Manufacturing

This project is funded through the NSF Translation to Practice (TTP) program, which supports efforts to translate research discoveries into practical tools that benefit communities, industry, and society. This NSF TTP-T award supports research to develop an environmentally friendly manufacturing process for making advanced computer chips that power smartphones, computers, and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Current chip fabrication methods rely on the use of hazardous chemical liquids that create substantial waste and consume large amounts of energy. This project seeks to advance an innovative all-dry, solvent-free material platform that could eliminate the use of liquid chemicals while enabling manufacturers to create smaller, more powerful and more energy-efficient chips. The team will design, synthesize, and test these new materials accounting for full-scale manufacturing equipment constraints. By using metals that are readily available in the United States and eliminating toxic liquid waste, this technology seeks to strengthen domestic supply chains and could reduce manufacturing energy use. The new materials could facilitate creation of chip features smaller than 15 nanometers, which are essential for meeting future computing power and energy efficiency needs for next-generation computing technologies. The addressable market for this class of materials is projected to reach $1.5 billion by 2031, creating significant economic opportunities for U.S. companies. Improved microelectronics enabled by this technology may advance critical areas including healthcare diagnostics, secure communications, educational technology, and national security systems. This research focuses on a new class of resists for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL), an integral and essential process in computer chip fabrication. Lithography uses a thin sacrificial layer, known as a resist, to transfer integrated circuit (IC) patterns onto a substrate, enabling the fabrication of the nanoscale architectures that define modern chip architectures. Radiation absorbed in exposed areas of the resist initiates reactions that enable pattern development, usually as a result of solubility or volatility switching, exploited by washing the resist with solvents or treating with gas phase etchants. Current state-of-the-art patterning is done using EUV light because its short wavelength enables high spatial resolution. However, traditional polymeric resists are not efficient EUV absorbers, and this has created the need for new metal-containing resists that are more EUV sensitive. The novelty of the research is based on amorphous metal-imidazolate frameworks, a class of metal-organic resists that responds to extreme ultraviolet light through chemical transformations of imidazole molecules. When exposed to EUV light, these transformations create volatility differences in the material that enable pattern formation through gas-phase etching rather than liquid chemical developers. The team seeks to demonstrate uniform material deposition across industry-standard silicon wafers and compatibility with high-vacuum EUV lithography tools. The project will establish defect-reduction protocols and quality-control metrics aligned with semiconductor industry standards. The anticipated results include a commercially viable all-dry resist platform that meets semiconductor industry EUVL requirements while dramatically reducing environmental impact and manufacturing costs, positioning the U.S. for leadership in next-generation microelectronics manufacturing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2552985 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Michael Tsapatsis | Institution: Johns Hopkins University, BALTIMORE, MD | Award Amount: $1,200,000 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2552985 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2552985.html