Dry radiation-chemical etching of metallic bismuth and aluminum films

The authors have developed radiation-sensitive charge-transfer-complex-based polymer materials which on irradiation form intermediate particles and compounds that enable etching of bismuth and aluminum metals. Metallic films, deposited on a substrate and coated with a radiation-sensitive material, were subjected to etching. Under electron irradiation with D = 0.8 and 640 Gy in a regime with and without optical enhancement of the latent image the optical density of the Bi film decreased from 1.4 to 0.7. The maximum achieved sensitivity for an Al film corresponds to a decrease of optical density from 4 to 2 under irradiation with D ∼ 600 Gy