The Polymer Society of Korea

안준태 (숭실대학교)

강범구 (숭실대학교)

Well-defined copolymers containing poly(4-hydroxystyrene) (PHS) segments with different polymer architectures were synthesized via living anionic polymerization in tetrahydrofuran (THF) at −30 °C using sec-butyllithium (sec-BuLi) as the initiator, followed by selective deprotection with tetra-n-butylammonium fluoride (TBAF) in THF at room temperature. A linear copolymer and 3-arm and 6-arm star copolymers were prepared, with the star architectures obtained through a silane-based coupling strategy. The synthesized polymers were formulated as i-line (365 nm) photoresists and evaluated using standard lithographic processes. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed that line edge roughness (LER) and line width roughness (LWR) decreased with increasing arm number, with the 6-arm star copolymer exhibiting the best lithographic performance.