A planographic printing plate precursor containing in the following order: an aluminum support; an image recording layer; and a protective layer, in which a thickness of the protective layer is 0.2 μm or greater, and in a case where a Bekk smoothness of a surface of an outermost layer at a side where the image recording layer is provided is 1000 seconds or less.

A composition comprising (A) a polymer comprising recurring units (a1) having a carboxyl group protected with an acid labile group and recurring units (a2) having a cyclic ester, cyclic carbonate or cyclic sulfonate structure, (B) a thermal acid generator, and (C) an organic solvent is suited to form a protective film between a substrate and a resist film. Even when a metal-containing resist film is used, the protective film is effective for preventing the substrate from metal contamination.

A lithographic printing plate precursor is disclosed including a support and a coating comprising (i) a photopolymerisable layer including a polymerisable compound and a photoinitiator, and a top layer provided above the photopolymerisable layer; characterized in that the top layer includes a non-polymeric polyfunctional compound in an amount between 2 mg/m.sup.2 and 80 mg/m.sup.2 which comprises at least two carboxyl and/or carboxylate groups.

The present invention provides a flexographic printing plate in which the dot gain of fine dots in a fade-out part is reduced and printability is improved. A flexographic printing plate obtained from a flexographic printing plate precursor comprising at least a support (A), a photosensitive resin layer (B) and a heat-sensitive mask layer (C) which are laminated in this order, characterized in that, when dots each having a diameter of 16 μm are formed at 175 lpi on the printing plate, the dots do not buckle until a load of 0.2 N is applied thereto. Preferably, when dots each having a diameter of 16 μm are formed at 175 lpi on the printing plate, the shoulder angle of each dot is 105 to 125° and the dot depth is 70 to 85 μm.

A flexographic printing plate obtained from a flexographic printing plate precursor includes at least a support, a photosensitive resin layer and a heat-sensitive mask layer laminated in this order, wherein the composite elastic modulus of each dot is 30 to 80 Mpa and the composite elastic modulus of each solid-printed part is 5 to 15 MPa. A photosensitive resin composition constituting the photosensitive resin layer includes a polymer prepared by polymerizing a conjugated diene, an ethylenically unsaturated compound and a photopolymerization initiator, wherein the content of the photopolymerization initiator is 2 to 9% by mass, the ethylenically unsaturated compound includes a (meth)acrylate compound having a number average molecular weight of 100 to 600 in a content of 5 to 16% by mass, and the ratio of the mass of the photopolymerization initiator and the mass of the compound is within the range of 0.20 to 0.55.

Provided is a laminate including a lithographic printing plate precursor and interleaving paper, in which the lithographic printing plate precursor is an on-press development type lithographic printing plate precursor containing an acid color developing agent in at least any of layers, and a pH of the interleaving paper is 5 or more.

A process for transferring a component from a release layer by exposing the release layer to light and heat from different sources is described. The process includes providing an assembly comprising a substrate, a release layer and a component, heating the release layer and exposing the release layer to an actinic wavelength of light, wherein the heating source and the actinic irradiation source are different sources.

A material for forming an adhesive film used for an adhesive film formed directly under a resist upper layer film, contains: (A) a resin having at least one structural unit containing a fluorine-substituted organic sulfonyl anion structure and having at least one structural unit shown by the following general formula (2) besides the structural unit containing the fluorine-substituted organic sulfonyl anion structure; (B) a thermal acid generator; and (C) an organic solvent. The material forms an adhesive film in a fine patterning process by a multilayer resist method in a semiconductor device manufacturing process, where the material gives an adhesive film that has high adhesiveness to a resist upper layer film, has an effect of suppressing fine pattern collapse, and also makes it possible to form an excellent pattern profile. A patterning process uses the material. A method forms the adhesive film.

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A chemically amplified positive resist composition is provided comprising a base polymer which contains a polymer comprising a phenolic hydroxy group-containing unit, a unit containing a phenolic hydroxy group protected with an acid labile group, and a unit containing a carboxy group protected with an acid labile group. The aromatic ring-containing repeat units account for at least 65 mol % of the overall repeat units of the polymer. A resist pattern with a very high resolution, reduced LER, improved rectangularity, and minimized influence of develop loading can be formed.

The present invention relates to a laser-imageable composition comprising an oxyanion of a multivalent metal and an oligomer, wherein the oxyanion of a multivalent metal comprises particles having a D.sub.50 particle size distribution of 10 μm or less. A method of formulation of the laser-imageable composition and a substrate comprising the laser-imageable composition applied thereto are also disclosed.