Mass-Spectrometric Observation of Counter Anion Production in SU-8 Exposed to UV Light and its Use for Dill C Parameter Determination

Photopolymerization is a phenomenon that is the basis of much of today's microfabrication technology and intense research is conducted to improve its control and the characteristics of end products for a variety of applications. The design of microscopic structures often relies on the accurate knowledge and modeling of photopolymer's behavior upon exposure, i.e. the Dill parameters, for each radiation species of interest and therefore the development of flexible characterization techniques is of great importance. SU-8 is a popular compound that is representative of a whole class that relies on cationic polymerization, where an acid is obtained via photolysis of an onium salt during exposure. Here we report on the observation of SbF6- via laser desorption mass spectrometry on SU-8 exposed to UV light at the wavelength of 365 nm and demonstrate that the yield of this counter-anion as a function of exposure is consistent with the Dill C parameter value available in the literature. (c) 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2019, 57, 967-972