Living anionic polymerization of silyl-protected hydroxystyrenes at room temperature

Abstract

Polyhydroxystyrene (PHOST) and its derivatives are technologically important as resist materials for microlithography. We have applied the modified Nakahama procedure to the synthesis of well-defined poly(p-hydroxy-α-methylstyrene) and also utilized the living anionic polymerization technique to study the effect of polymer ends on the sensitivity of a chemical amplification resist. An chemically amplified positive resist based on PHOST prepared by the living anionic technique has been also reported. In this paper is described a simple procedure of living anionic polymerization of p- and mSOST with sec-butyllithium (sBuLi) at room temperature, which makes use of cyclohexane as the solvent. The advantage of living polymerization at room temperature has been well demonstrated by the group transfer polymerization.