Photoresists for lithography<\/p>\n
The lead scientists in Zurich made luminescent polymers in various colours that serve as photoresists – a light-sensitive material used to engrave patterns on a surface – whilst withstanding harsh chemical conditions.<\/p>\n
Associate Professor Yinyin Bao, who conducted research at ETH Zurich and is now at the University of Helsinki, said these polymers can enable the creation of fine-scale geometric structures on a semiconductor chip when exposed to UV light.<\/p>\n
“We’ve developed a new class of long-chain molecules that can be manufactured into OLED pixels using direct light exposure,” he said.<\/p>\n
Bao led the research together with ETH’s Professor Chih-Jen Shih.<\/p>\n
RMIT’s Christofferson provided computer simulations on how the molecules could effectively shield themselves while still being able to emit light.<\/p>\n
Protective shell, luminescent core<\/p>\n
To protect the sensitive luminescent molecules from aggressive chemicals, the researchers developed a molecular complex based on the core-shell principle: at its centre lies the colour-emitting molecule.<\/p>\n
Surrounding it are arms arranged in a star-like pattern, the outer ends of which react to UV light.<\/p>\n
When exposed to light, they cross-link with the arms of other stars, thereby shielding the OLED molecules during the manufacturing process used to make computer chips, called photolithography.<\/p>\n
“We separate the two functions spatially,” explained Shih.<\/p>\n
“The light-emitting molecule is protected inside, whilst the reactive cross-linking groups are on the outside. This allows the photoresist to react during lithography without causing significant damage to the light-emitting core.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photoresists for lithography The lead scientists in Zurich made luminescent polymers in various colours that serve as photoresists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-903327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}