Amplification of resist structures of fluorinated resist polymers by structural growth of the structures by targeted chemical bonding of fluorinated oligomers

A process for post-exposure amplification of structured resists, which comprises the steps:

• applying a chemically amplified photoresist to a substrate, the photoresist including:
• an at least partially fluorinated film-forming polymer having acid-labile groups and hindered anchor groups for linking amplification agents, the acid-labile groups being eliminatable by acid and used for liberating polar groups to increase a solubility of the polymer in polar developers;
• polar groups attached to the polymer;
• a photo acid generator;
• and
• a solvent;
• drying the photoresist to yield a photoresist film;
• exposing section-by-section the photoresist film to produce an exposed resist containing a latent image;
• heating the exposed resist to a first temperature to convert the latent image into a chemical profile by liberating the polar groups on the polymer;
• developing the resist with a polar developer by detaching parts of the chemical profile containing liberated polar groups from the substrate to yield a structured resist;
• applying an amplification agent to the structured resist, the amplification agent being at least partially fluorinated and having at least one linkage group for reacting with the anchor group of the polymer to link the amplification agent to the polymer;
• and
• removing excess amplification agent.