Charge dissipation layer based on conductive polymer for electron-beam patterning of bulk zinc oxide

The ability of thin conductive polythiophene layers to dissipate electrons in electron-beam lithography (EBL) process on bulk zinc oxide (ZnO) samples is shown. High energy electron-beam exposure of relatively thick (650 nm-thick) hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) negative-type resist deposited on ZnO was investigated for three different cases. In turn, no charge dissipation layer, 40 nm-thick Al and 100 nm-thick conductive polymer layers were used on the top of HSQ resist. A quick and inexpensive processing method with the use of polymer is shown for an EBL exposure of dense and high-resolution patterns in HSQ/ZnO samples.