Abstract
A major photoproduct from the irradiation of triphenylsulfonium salts is a Brönsted acid. This photochemical process has been used in several polymer film applications where the acid is used for crosslinking of films or to initiate some other acid catalyzed reaction. Despite the widespread applications of these materials, little has been published about the efficiency of acid generation in polymeric films or catalytic chain length associated with chemically amplified systems. This talk will describe the use of a merocyanine dye technique to analyze for acid production in polymer films. The amount of acid produced on irradiation (UV or E-beam) has been determined by this method and the catalytic chain length has been measured for one chemically amplified resist system.
