Jacobs University

Physics Project report

Photolithography process and

Transfer and Impedance curve
measurement

Author: Supervisor:
Kiran Adhikari Prof. Dr. Veit Wagner

January 31, 2018

Abstract
In this report, we have studied the photolithography processes used
in microfabrication techniques and transfer and impedance curves of
ZnO Thin film transistor. Several steps in photolithography processes
have been explained and optimization condition obtained via trial and
error method have been reported. Similarly, we have also studied
electrical properties of ZnO Thin Film Transistor such as Transfer and
Impedance curves before and after passivation which has application
in reducing hysteresis.
1 Introduction of Photolithography
Even before the concept of the transistor action was first invented in 1928
by Edfar Lilenfield, the process of photolithography had been widely used
to fabricate printing plates. Ten years after the invention of transistor, the
same technology was applied in the fabrication of planar transistors[2].

The surface of the the silicon dioxide layer is first coated with a solu-
tion of photosensitive polymeric material called photoresist by which leaves
a solid film of resist on the silicon dioxide layer. There are three types of
photoresist: positive, negative and image reversal photoresist which reacts
differently when exposed to light. After that, the wafer is baked to ensure
the evaporation of solvent. The resist coated wafer is then contacted with the
optical mask with fine patterns and then exposed to strong ultraviolet light.
After the exposure ends, the wafer is treated with a developing solution .
Positive photoresist on the exposed area is rendered soluble by the exposure
and dissolves away from the substrate but the unexposed area remains on
the substrate. On the contrary, negative photoresist on the exposed area is
insolubilized by the exposure and remains undissolved by developing solution
but the unexposed area gets dissolved. The resist pattern obtained is used
as a mask for the etching of the oxide layer. There are two kinds of etching
process: wet etching and dry etching. In wet etching, a liquid etchant is used
which results in isotropic etching. In the case of dry etching, bombardment
of ions or plasma of reactive gases is used to remove oxide layer. This process
is anisotropic. Finally, the resist pattern is removed from the wafer surface
using a stripping solution or oxygen plasma.Modern photolithography uses
methods like optical radiation, electron beam, scanning probe, and X-Ray to
image the mask[2].

Concept of photolithography is necessary because it is not possible to

make a device only with thin films thus layers of thin films have to be pat-
terned, etched and coated.At the same time, photolithography gives us a
method to create millions of devices in a single batch.

2 Steps of photolithography
Overall, there are three main steps of photolithography:

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 1. Coat Photoresist

2. Expose through mask with UV (365 mm)

3. Develop

Figure 1: Main steps of Photolithography (SCME)

2.1 Spin coating

Spin coating is the commonly used method to coat a substrate with a resist
solution. The solution is spreaded onto the substrate which is held on a
vacuum spindle. After placing the substrate on the vacuum spindle, the
substrate is accelerated to a constant rotating speed of around 3000 rpm for
40 to 90 minutes. The film of the the solution is thinned rapidly by rotational
force and dried to form a solid film.

2.1.1 Thickness Vs Speed

The thickness of a spin coated film is inversely proportional to the square
root of spin speed[2]. It also depends on external factor such as material
concentration and solvent evaporation rate. The general behavior of the
thickness can be studied from the equation t ∝ √1ω .The graph is shown in
figure 3.

2.2 Soft bake

After the resist film is formed by spin coating process, the film is softbaked
in air oven to evaporate the remaining solvent in the film and enhance the

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 Figure 2: Spin coating

Figure 3: Thickness vs spinspeed curve

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adhesion to the substrate. The temperature of soft-baking is 120 ◦ C for 90
seconds.

2.3 Exposure of Photoresist

After the soft-baking is performed, the film of photoresist is exposed to light.
The photoresist coated wafer is fixed into a flat face of mobile stage by air
suction and brought under a chrome mask. In the chrome mask, chromium
is deposited onto a glass plate to a thickness of about 0.08 micrometer. With
the help of optical microscope, the wafer is aligned with the mask pattern
and pressed to the the chrome mask by vertical movement of stage. The film
of photoresist is then exposed to a UV light from a high-pressure mercury
lamp. It is generally advised to not make a direct eye contact while the film
of photoresist is being exposed to UV light. If the resist surface is made a
perfect contact with the chrome mask surface, the transfer pattern will be
slightly affected by diffraction of light, but usually the surfaces are separated
by a thin air which prevents the effect of diffraction[3].

Types of photoresist
There are mainly two types of photoresist: Positive photoresist where ex-
posed regions become more soluble and a positive mark is left after de-
velopment and negative photoresist which is just the opposite for positive
photoresist[3]. This effect is summarized in figure 4.

2.4 Post-exposure baking

Only in the case where a chemically amplified resist is used, this process is re-
quired to promote chemical amplification. Post exposure baking procedure is
similar to soft-baking. This process is not necessary if chemical amplification
takes place rapidly even at room temperature.

2.5 Development of resist

There are two types of development process: chemical and physical. In
chemical development, the main component of resist system gets dissolved
in the developer by the chemical reaction. With positive resist, the exposed
resist is dissolved while the unexposed resist remains on the wafer. With

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 Figure 4: Positive Vs Negative photoresist

negative resist, the unexposed resist is dissolved while the exposed resist
remains. For example, for a positive photo-resist composed of phenolic resin
and naphthoquinonediazide, the resist is developed with the aqueous solution
of strong base like trisodium phosphate or tetramethylammonium hydroxide.
The phenolic resin in the resist dissolves by the chemical reation. We used
AZ 726MIF as a developer. Chemical and physical development of resist is
shown in figure 5.

2.6 Hardbake
In order to improve the adhesion to the substrate and resistance to etching,
the resist pattern after development is hard baked at the temperature of
around 140 degree Celsius for about 1 minute and 30 seconds.

2.7 Etching
Etching is a procedure to chemically remove the wafer layer. Most etching
procedure form a slope due to undercut masking layer. Distance of this un-
dercutting is known as bias. Etchants with large bias are called isotropic
while ethcants with small bias with sharp edges are known as anisotropic.

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 Figure 5: Immersion and Spray on develop (SCME)

This is shown in figure 6. There are two types of etching process: Dry etch-
ing and Wet etching. Almost all of the etching processes in semiconductor
fabrication was carried out with wet etching process before the dry etching
technique was introduced.

2.7.1 Wet etching

In wet etching technique, the substrate is etched with an etchant solution.
Here, the wafer is dipped in the etchant solution and subsequently cleaned
with distilled pure water. The etch rate is dependent on the composition
of etchant solution and temperature. Since these two factors are easily con-
trollable, the results can be easily reproduced again. For example: Silicon
dioxide is etched with a solution of distilled water and few drops of HCL.
Wet etching procedure results in isotropic etching.

2.7.2 Dey etching

Techniques such as Plasma etching or reactive ion etching is generally used
for dry etching processes. Reactive ion etching is currently more popular in
the microfabrication of semiconductor devices.

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 Figure 6: Isotropic Vs Anisotropic Etching

2.8 Resist removal

After the etching processes, the resist pattern remaining on the surface of
the wafer is removed by wet or dry processes. In the wet process, the resist
is removed with resist remover such as acetone , washed again with distilled
pure water and then dried with dry nitrogen gas. This procedure is important
as it removes the organic compounds from substrate.

2.9 Inspection
After the resist removal processes is completed, the substrate is taken into the
optical microscope for the pattern inspection. If the structure is completely
misaligned or the pattern is too thin or wide, sometimes the whole process
has to be repeated.

3 Parameters in Lab
We used AZ1514H Positive photoresist because of its following properties[5]:
1. Positive Thin Resists for Wet Etching
2. Improved resist adhesion to all common substrate materials
3. Broad process parameter window for stable and reproducible litho-
processes

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 4. High development rate

5. Compatible with all common developers (NaOH-, KOH- or TMAH-

based)

6. Compatible with all common strippers (e. g. with AZ 100 Remover,

organic solvents, or aqueous alkaline)

7. g-, h- and i-line sensitive (approx. 320 - 440 nm)

8. Resist film thickness range approx. 0.5 - 3 µm

Besides the temperature of the soft-baking was 120◦ C and the process lasts
for 90 seconds. Similarly, the temperature of the hardbake was 140◦ C for
90 seconds. These results are obtained through several trial and error meth-
ods and found to be the optimized case for better photolithography processes.

The microscopic picture of the thin film layer is shown in figure 7.The
square boxes are ZnO and the blue background is Silicon dioxide substrate.
Unfortunately, the picture of the original sample could not be restored from
the computer due to the technical problems. Therefore, picture in figure 7 is
taken from previous samples.

4 Thin film transistor

The concept of transistor was first introduced in 1928 by Edgar Lilienfield and
have been succesfully implemented in several electrical components. Lately,
there has been an increase in research trend on thin film transistors (TFTs)
which has several application in active matrix liquid crystal displays where
it is applied as an integrated switching device.[1]

Thin film transistors follows under the family of field effect transistor with
three terminal (source, drain, gate) devices. Source and drain are seperated
by a layer of dielectric material, and the active layer between source and
drain is made out of semiconducting material.

When positive gate-source voltage is applied, the TFT is switched on.

The dielectric layer present between Source and drain acts as a capacitor
which creates an electric field. Due to this electric field, negative charges in

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Figure 7: Device after photolithography

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the active layer are attracted towards the dieletric semiconductor interface
which forms a conductive channel. This is responsible for the net current
flowing from the source to drain once a drain-source voltage is applied. [3]

In our experiment, we have used a gate contact made of highly doped

silicon. The dimension of Silicon dioxide dielectric is 230nm thick. Source
and drain contacts is made out of two layers of metals: 10nm of indium
tin oxide followed by 30nm of gold. Here, the average channel length is 20
micrometer and the average channel width is 2000 micrometer[4].

4.1 Hysteresis and passivation process

Hysteresis is another important properties of Thin film transistors denoted
as H and measured in volts. It is measured with the difference in voltage at
same current level for forward and reverse direction. It is explained theoret-
ically as a result of charges being caught in deeper trap states and released
on longer time scales. Thus, low Hysteresis is desirable. Hysteresis can be
decreased by a method of passivation.

ZnO is deposited by spray pyrolysis method. A hot plate acts as a heat

source with temperature of 360 degree Celsius. The sample is placed on the
top of the hot plate. With the help of the air brush with a Nitrogen flowing as
carrier gas, zinc acetate is released from the air brush. The distance between
the tip of the nozzle and the sample was 25cm. In order to obtain 12nm
thick ZnO layer, 320 microlitre of the precursor solution is placed. With
the trial and error method, 10s interval between the sprays was used for
the evaporation of solvent. After the spray pyrolysis process, transfer and
impedance curve is measured before and after passivation.

4.2 Transfer curve

The transfer curve before passivation is shown in figure 8 and after passivation
in figure 8. In the figure 8 and 9, it can be seen that hysteresis before and
after passivation is decreased.

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Figure 8:

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Figure 9:

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4.3 Impedance curve
The impedance curve before and after passivation is shown in figure 10 and
figure 11 respectively. This impedance curve is measured for AC Voltage of
500mV and frequency of 2KHz. It can be observed from figure 10 and 11
that passivation compound reacts negatively with the interface and changes
the properties resulting the change in characteristics impedance curve.

Figure 10:

5 Conclusion
We have studied the photolithography processes which is used in microfibrac-
tion techniques and transfer and Impedance curves before and after passiva-
tion. In particular, we studied phenomenon involved in photolithography and
microfabrication processes such as study of photoresist material, spin coat-
ing, exposing, developing, zinc oxide deposition by pyrolysis method, and
passivation of passivation compounds. With several trial and error methods,
we found out the optimization conditions for these methods. Similarly, we
also studied the electrical properties of Thin Film Transistors such as Trans-
fer and Impedance curves before and after passivation in order to lower down

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Figure 11:

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the Hysteresis. Time did not allow us to fully study these properties, how-
ever with the results obtained, we concluded that the passivation molecules
interact with the interface changing the characteristics of these curves. Thus,
these remaining works are left for future research.

6 Acknowledgement
I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to Prof. Wagner as well
as Jonas Köhling who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful
project and helped me a lot during the Research.

7 References
1. Introduction to Thin Film Transistors, S.D. Brotherton, S. D. Broth-
erton, Springer

2. Photolithography, Dr. R. B. Darling, Wake forest University

3. Anderson Janotti and Chris G Van de Walle 2009 Rep. Prog. Phys.
72 126501

4. Solid-State Electronic Devices,Christo Papadopoulos, Springer 2013

5. https : //www.microchemicals.com/products/photoresists/az1514h.html

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