Morphological changes of electron-beam irradiated PMMA surface

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) study of low energy (10keV) electron beam irradiated Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) surface was performed. PMMA thin film of (20μm), were used in lithography technique. AFM in tapping mode has been utilized to investigate the morphological changes on the surfaces of sample as a function of fluence. TM-AFM showed the hills of the nano size surrounded by crater type features in all irradiated samples. The Root-Mean-Square (rms) surface roughness of the samples changed from 2.666 nm to 5.617 nm with fluence from 2x10
¹⁴
e/cm
²
to 1x10
¹⁶
e/cm
²
. It shows that roughness increases with fluence.