AVS 50th International Symposium
    Thin Films Thursday Sessions
       Session TF-ThA

Paper TF-ThA6
Real Time X-ray Monitoring of Ta Film Thickness, Phase, and Texture Evolution during Sputter Deposition

Thursday, November 6, 2003, 3:40 pm, Room 329

Session: In-Situ / Ex-Situ & Real-Time Monitoring
Presenter: D. Windover, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Authors: D. Windover, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
S.L. Lee, ARDEC, Benet Laboratories
T.-M. Lu, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Correspondent: Click to Email
This work focuses on X-ray reflectivity and diffraction techniques for real time monitoring of thin film deposition inside a sputtering system. An X-ray transparent, beryllium, cylindrical chamber was constructed to allow for diffraction and reflection from the multiple geometries necessary for X-ray characterization methods. A magnetron sputter head with varying target-sample distances was used as the deposition source. In this study, tantalum was deposited on silicon substrates. Fast X-ray diffraction and texture information was collected using a position sensitive area detector. Fast X-ray reflectometry was collected using an energy dispersive silicon detector. Examples of thickness, phase, and texture monitoring are presented. We conclude with a discussion on the advantages and potential limitations of the characterization approaches and their applicability to real time monitoring in deposition systems.