The electronics industry is pursuing smaller feature sizes based on Moore’s law, thus a smaller wavelength light source is needed in order to achieve higher resolution. In recent years, next-generation lithography (NGL) technologies such as Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography have attracted scientists’ attention. With a wavelength of 13.5 nm, smaller features can be printed in a single step. Among the emerging EUV photoresists, HfO2 and ZrO2 based photoresists developed by researchers at Cornell University show promising results. However, Zr and Hf are relatively low EUV absorbing metals compared to Zn. Under this notion, a series of photoresists using high EUV absorption element Zn as the metal core were developed. In this work, a set of zinc-based nanoparticles with different acid ligands were synthesized, and their photolithographic performance was explored. This work hopes to guide and promote the design for next-generation EUV photoresists.