the preferred halogenated monomers are those containing alpha chloro and fluoro substituted alkyls the bromo and iodo substituted alkyl derivatives tend to be nonvolatile polymers containing such monomers generally have low stability and tend to cross link when irradiated with energetic radiations one of the possible mechanisms to greatly enhance sensitivity of the novel self developing resist is the electron capture dissociation of the alpha halogenated side chain upon irradiation as exemplified by poly trichloroacetaldehyde str3 and by poly dioxolane str4 formation of the carbocation initiates the depolymerization of the low ceiling temperature resist material the incorporation of the alpha halo substituted aldehyde monomers into the oxygen heteroatom linear chain polymer according to the processes of this invention surprisingly provides effective chain scission at low radiation energy input for self development of the resist the effectiveness of our novel self developing resist is described by two quantities equ1 in the case where there is negligible chain transfer during unzipping by irradiation then g m u2248 g s m n where m n is the number average molecular weight of the polymer for the prior art polymethylmethacrylate g s 1 3 and g m lt g s however for a typical resist according to this invention g s is greater than 5 and g m is greater than 100 preferably the g m is in excess of 10 000 i e more than 10 000 monomers are liberated for every 100 electron volts of energy absorbed and g s is greater than 7 the radiation energy for exposure and self development of the resist may be provided by energetic radiation such as gamma ray x ray electron beam or duv deep ultraviolet radiation exposure and self.