The design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel dendritic polymers as resist materials for next generation lithography

Over the past 15 years a wide range of designer dendrimers have been developed and synthesized, and their chemical and physical properties and behavior in solution have been studied and well characterized. Recently there has been a growing interest in the chemical and physical properties of dendrimers at surfaces and interfaces. The highly compact and globular shape of dendrimers, as well as their size monodispersity and multifunctionality, suggests that they should be ideal molecular building blocks for a wide range of surface-related applications involving self-assembled monolayers, Langmuir films, multilayers, solvent-cast thin films, and other assemblies based on dendrimer-composite materials. The first chapter of this dissertation reviews the topic of dendrimers at surfaces and interfaces. Specifically, it focuses on both the synthetic and physical chemistry of dendrimers at surfaces and interfaces in addition to the materials science of related applications involving dendrimer monolayers and thin films.; Chapter Two discusses the preparation and characterization of covalently bound functionalized poly(benzyl ether) dendrimer self-assembled monolayers. The application of these dendrimer films as passivation resists for scanning probe lithography is also detailed.; Chapter Three describes the synthesis of carboxylic acid functionalized poly(benzyl ether) dendrimers and the preparation of ionically bound self-assembled monolayers via an electrostatic deposition method. The performance of electrostatically charged dendrimer films as resists for scanning probe lithography is discussed.; Chapter Four details the synthesis of a novel class of poly(benzyl ether) dendrimers functionalized at the periphery with thermally labile tertiary butyl esters and carbonates. These dendrimers were formulated into a novel class of chemically amplified resists consisting of a dendritic polymer as the resin material. These dual tone dendrimer-based resists show high sensitivity to both ultra-violet and electron beam radiation, and their lithographic patterning using such tools is described.