Abstract: A light-shielding film 2 is formed on a transparent substrate 1. A hard mask film 3 is formed on this light-shielding film 2. The entire hard mask film 3 is made of a chromium-containing material including tin. The film made a chromium-containing material including tin can cause a significant increase in the etching rate at the time of chlorine-containing dry etching. Furthermore, comparing with a film made of a chromium-containing material in which part of chromium is replaced with a light element, the above film has an equal or higher level of etching resistance to fluorine-dry etching. Thus, burden on a photoresist at the time of etching the chromium-containing material film can be reduced. Therefore, high-precision pattern transfer can be performed even in the case that the resist film is thinned.

Abstract: An object of this invention is to provide a photomask blank in which there is little warpage and is which an amount of warpage change after a photomask manufacturing process ends is also small. First, a phase shift film is deposited (S101), next, the phase shift film is subjected to a heat treatment within a temperature range of 260° C. to 320° C. for four hours or more (S102), and thereafter a flash irradiation treatment is performed thereon (S103). A light-shielding film is deposited on the phase shift film after the aforementioned treatments (S104), to thereby obtain a photomask blank (S105).

Abstract: In the chromium-containing material film of the present invention, an element is added thereto and is capable of bringing a mixture of the element and the chromium into a liquid phase at a temperature of 400° C. or lower. The use of such a chromium-containing material film as an optical film (e.g., a light-shielding film, an etching mask film, or an etching stopper film) of a photo mask blank can achieve an improvement in chlorine-dry etching while retaining the same optical characteristics and the like as those of the conventional chromium-containing material film, thereby increasing the patterning precision.