| AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session AS-WeM |
| Session: | New Ion Beam Technologies for Imaging, Sample Preparation and Analysis |
| Presenter: | A. Wright, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK |
| Authors: | P. Mack, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK T. Nunney, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK R.G. White, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK A. Wright, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
When sputter profiling a multi-layer material using XPS, it is often difficult to obtain an accurate calibration of the depth scale. In part, this is due to the fact that the sputter rate in each material is different and a post profile measurement of crater depth will only yield an average value for the sputter rate. The purpose of this paper is to provide a method for an internal, standardless calibration of the depth scale which can be applied to single profiles through multilayer materials.
As a layer is etched to a thickness of a few nanometres, the spectrum from the underlying layer can be seen. With knowledge of the electron attenuation lengths in the layers it is then possible to calculate the thickness of the remaining upper layer. If this calculation is carried out following each of a number of sputter cycles then the sputter rate within the layer can be calculated. This value can then be applied to sputtering within the whole of the upper layer. If this is repeated for each layer in a multilayer sample then an accurate depth scale can be constructed.
This method will be applied to a number of samples including standard multilayer materials and the value of the method assessed.