07134 IUPAC Gold Book - chemical amplification 10.1351/goldbook.CT07134 CT07134 current 1 Process consisting of a chemical reaction that generates a species that catalyzes another reaction and also the succeeding catalyzed reaction. Chemical amplification can lead to a change in structure and by consequence to a change in the physical properties of a polymeric material. The term 'chemical amplification' is commonly used in photo-resist lithography employing a photo-acid generator or photo-base generator. An example of chemical amplification is the transformation of [(tert-butoxycarbonyl)oxy]phenyl groups in polymer chains to hydroxyphenyl groups catalyzed by a photo-generated acid. polymeric https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/M03667 transformation https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/T06446 PAC, 2004, 76, 889. 'Definitions of terms relating to reactions of polymers and to functional polymeric materials (IUPAC Recommendations 2003)' on page 891 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac200476040889) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/CT07134/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/CT07134/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/CT07134/plain Citation: 'chemical amplification' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.CT07134 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-04-18T22:40:52+00:00