A U.S. research team has developed new materials and processes that can make microchips used in smartphones, cars, aircraft, and other electronic devices smaller, faster, and cheaper. They are expected to be applied to next-generation semiconductor manufacturing, helping improve electronic device performance and reduce expense.
A research team at Johns Hopkins University said, "We have found a way to print circuits so small they are invisible to the naked eye, with precision and at low cost," in Nature Chemical Engineering on the 11th (local time).
Michael Tsapatsis, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering who led the research, said, "Corporations have a roadmap for making smaller and more sophisticated chips in 10 to 20 years," and added, "Finding a process on the production line that rapidly and precisely probes materials to economically create smaller structures has been a major challenge."
Microchips perform basic computing functions with circuits etched onto thin silicon wafers. Typically, a thin film called a "resist" is coated on the wafer, and light is shone onto it to trigger a chemical reaction that forms the circuits where electricity will flow and devices will be placed.
The problem is that the smaller the circuit, the much more powerful light (radiation) is required, and existing resists have not responded sufficiently to radiation. The necessary high-performance laser equipment already exists, but there were no new materials and processes to match it.
To solve this problem, the Johns Hopkins team developed a new resist made by mixing metals and organics. In particular, they created a resist that responds to the next-generation light, "beyond extreme ultraviolet (B-EUV)," enabling circuit patterns smaller than the current minimum circuit size producible in semiconductor processing, 10 nanometers (nm; 1 nm is one-billionth of a meter). For example, a metal like zinc absorbs B-EUV light and emits electrons, and these electrons react with organics to act as a "switch" that engraves the circuit pattern.
The team also succeeded in uniformly and precisely coating this resist onto silicon wafers using a new method called "chemical liquid deposition (CLD)." Because this method can rapidly combine a variety of metals and organics for experiments, countless new combinations can be tested going forward.
Professor Tsapatsis said, "This chemistry can use at least 10 metals and hundreds of organics," and predicted, "It is highly likely to be used in semiconductor manufacturing within 10 years." He also explained, "Because metals respond differently to different types of light, metals that were lackluster with conventional extreme ultraviolet (EUV) can be excellent candidates with B-EUV," adding, "Zinc is a representative example."
References
Nature Chemical Engineering (2025), DOI: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44286-025-00273-z