AVS 46th International Symposium
    Applied Surface Science Division Tuesday Sessions
       Session AS-TuM

Paper AS-TuM10
Quasi Atomistic Depth Resolution with Auger Depth Profiling for Oxide / Metal Structure

Tuesday, October 26, 1999, 11:20 am, Room 6A

Session: Ion Beam Analysis and Depth Profiling
Presenter: M. Menyhard, Research Institute for Technical Physics and Materials Science, Hungary
Authors: M. Menyhard, Research Institute for Technical Physics and Materials Science, Hungary
A. Barna, Research Institute for Technical Physics and Materials Science, Hungary
Zs. Benedek, Research Institute for Technical Physics and Materials Science, Hungary
A. Sulyok, Research Institute for Technical Physics and Materials Science, Hungary
Correspondent: Click to Email
By applying specimen rotation, and grazing angle of incidence for depth profiling, the depth resolution is limited by atomic mixing. To achieve depth resolution of less than 1 nm we have two possibilities; either to decrease the ion energy or to find evaluation routine to correct the effect of atomic mixing. Using very low ion energy, however, the sputtering rate is small resulting in practical problems e.g. extreme cleanliness long measuring time is necessary. Thus it is of great importance to develope evaluation routines for the correction of atomic mixing. We have shown that our trial-and-error routine based on dynamic TRIM simulation can be successfully applied@footnote 1,2@ for the evaluation of the depth profiles where the layers are made of elements with no affinity for compound formation. In this contribution we will report on the extension of our evaluation method for the case of oxide / metal structure. Well characterized silicon oxide /silicon, and oxynitride / silicon structures (specimens were kindly provided by E. Garfunkel of U. Rutgers) with various thickness were depth profiled applying various sputtering conditions. At 0.4 keV Ar sputtering (where the measurement time is reasonable) the depth resolution was found to be around 0.7 nm, while at 0.2 keV better than 0.4 nm. At this later energy, however, practical studies cannot be performed because of the long measuring time. Our evaluation routine was parametrized to reproduce the experimentally measured depth profiles for a given sputtering condition. It turned out that using the same parameters the simulated and measured depth profiles agreed well for the various sputtering conditions. In this way we can apply the higher ion energy (0.4 keV) for routine analysis and using the evaluation routine depth resolution about 0.4 nm could be obtained. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@M. Menyhard, Surf. Interface Anal. 26 1001 (1998). @footnote 2@M. Menyhard and A. Sulyok, J. Vac. Sci.Tech A16 1091 (1998).