AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Applied Surface Science Wednesday Sessions
       Session AS-WeM

Paper AS-WeM9
XPS Comparison of Ar, Coronene, C60, and Ar Gas Cluster Ion Beam Depth Profiling of Polyimide Films

Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 10:40 am, Room Cochiti

Session: New Ion Beam Technologies for Imaging, Sample Preparation and Analysis
Presenter: J.S. Hammond, Physical Electronics
Authors: J.S. Hammond, Physical Electronics
T. Miyayama, ULVAC-PHI, Japan
N. Sanada, ULVAC-PHI, Japan
J.F. Moulder, Physical Electronics
M. Suzuki, ULVAC-PHI, Japan
A. Takuhara, Kyushu University, Japan
Correspondent: Click to Email
Polyimide thin films have found wide-spread use in many industrial products such as microelectronics and thin film display panels due to their excellent insulating properties, high resistance to heat in manufacturing processes and its excellent flexibility and other mechanical properties. To increase the adhesion of metal films to polyimide substrates, ion beam and plasma surface modification steps are frequently incorporated in the manufacturing processes. It is therefore highly desirable to find a quantitative chemical depth profiling technique to characterize the surface modification layer and the polyimide thin film itself. A comparison of the use of XPS depth profiling of thin polyimide films with Ar, Coronene, C60, and Ar Gas Cluster Ion Beam (GCIB) sputter sources will be presented. The GCIB sputter source produces an Ar2,500+ ion beam with user definable incident beam energy. XPS elemental quantification and chemical state spectroscopy reveals that Ar, Coronene and C60, ion sources produce rapid damage of the polyimide with a wide range of ion gun experimental conditions. Optimized conditions for the incident ion beam energy of the GCIB will be presented to provide minimal chemical state damage during the depth profiling of 100 nm thick films. Results will also be presented showing that the GCIB source can be used to remove Ar+ induced damage layers.