AVS 50th International Symposium
    Applied Surface Science Thursday Sessions
       Session AS-ThM

Paper AS-ThM8
Characterization of Silicon-Oxynitride Dielectric Thin Films using Grazing Incidence X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Thursday, November 6, 2003, 10:40 am, Room 324/325

Session: Electron Spectroscopy
Presenter: E. Landree, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Authors: E. Landree, National Institute of Standards and Technology
T. Jach, National Institute of Standards and Technology
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The evolution of gate dielectric film thickness outlined in the 2002 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) is continually driving the need for new techniques sensitive to variations in spatial composition and thickness on the order of sub-nanometers. One of the promising techniques for characterizing ultrathin films is grazing incidence x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (GIXPS).@footnote 1@ GIXPS utilizes the dependence on the material properties of the film, and the incident angle of the x-rays to control the electric field penetration in the sample. Varying the angle of incidence from zero to some value slightly greater than the angle for total x-ray external reflection, it is possible to probe nondestructively the chemical nature of the film at different depths. Physical properties such as depth profile, density and thickness, are extracted by comparing the calculated photoemission spectrum of a constructing model of the film structure and the measured angle dependent photoemission spectrum. The measured dielectric thin film thickness and chemical depth profile from a diverse group of silicon oxynitride samples in the range of 2 - 5 nm will be discussed. In addition, challenges associated with the dependence of the technique upon various fundamental materials parameters will be addressed. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@ T. Jach and E. Landree. Journal of Surface Analysis. 9, 3 (2002).