AVS 53rd International Symposium
    Applied Surface Science Thursday Sessions
       Session AS-ThM

Paper AS-ThM8
Vacuum Splitting at Buried Electronic Interfaces: A Technique Enabling Nanoscale Chemical and Physical Analysis

Thursday, November 16, 2006, 10:20 am, Room 2005

Session: Ultra Thin Films and Buried Interfaces
Presenter: W.F. Stickle, Hewlett-Packard Company
Authors: W.F. Stickle, Hewlett-Packard Company
D. Ohlberg, Hewlett Packard Labs
J.J. Blackstock, Hewlett Packard Labs
C.L. Donley, Hewlett Packard Labs
D.R. Stewart, Hewlett Packard Labs
Correspondent: Click to Email
In modern solid-state electronic devices, the critical layers and interfaces are now reaching scales of only a few nanometers thick. These layers are generally buried underneath thick and complex materials stacks, the fabrication of which frequently alters the chemical and physical properties of the critical interfaces. Nonetheless, correlating the chemical and physical structure of these nanoscale layers and interfaces is essential for optimizing reliable device performance. The conventional approaches for analysing deeply buried layers employ ion-milling to depth-profile the materials stack down to the critical film or interface. However, such depth-profiling processes often induce chemical and physical changes several nanometers below the exposed surface. This modification of the device stack can reduce the utility of such investigations -- particularly when the critical interfaces are of chemical compositions or physical structures that are easily altered by atom bombardment. We present a novel method for investigating the undamaged physical and chemical properties of buried critical layers and interfaces. This technique is based on engineering a weakened interface adjacent to the layer(s) of interest in the device stack, followed by physical cleaving at this interface in a UHV environment. We present UHV XPS and STM data from a series of experimental nanoelectronic device stacks investigated with this new method, and compare the data against those acquired using conventional depth-profiling. Direct comparison illustrates the utility of this new method for acquiring accurate information on the physical and chemical structure of buried nanoscale layers and interfaces.