| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Applied Surface Science Division | Thursday Sessions |
| Session AS+NS-ThA |
| Session: | Profiling, Imaging and Other Multidimensional Pursuits |
| Presenter: | Kevin Abbasi, Swagelok Center for Surface Analysis of Materials, Case school of Engineering, Case Western Reserve University |
| Authors: | K. Abbasi, Swagelok Center for Surface Analysis of Materials, Case school of Engineering, Case Western Reserve University A.A. Avishai, Swagelok Center for Surface Analysis of Materials, Case school of Engineering, Case Western Reserve University |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Thin films are traditionally being characterized using cross sectional analysis with scanning or transmission electron microscopes. Although accuracy of these technique are very high, it’s hard to analyze a large number of samples this way. Surface analysis instruments such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES) and Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (Tof-SIMS) can be used to analyze the top surface and erode it with focused ions. Alternating the analysis and ion etching cycles, concentration profiles can be achieved.
In specific conditions where the element of interest has very low concentration or the thickness of the coating is less than the analysis volume (ultrathin films), Tof-SIMS becomes a very powerful tool as it provides the best detection limit and smallest analysis depth. Extracting useful and specific information from the mass spectra and reducing the dimensionality of very large datasets, is a challenge, that has not been fully resolved. Multivariate analysis has been widely deployed to assist in the interpretation of the Tof-SIMS data. Principal component analysis is a popular approach that can help ease the task of analyzing spectrums acquired at different locations from the top surface, compare it against different samples and help extract trends.
The purpose of this talk is to provide experimental guide for the characterization of ultrathin coatings (both flat and in form of particles). Two set of samples will be described: Inter-diffusion will be characterized in a flat coating obtained from Atomic layer deposition (ALD) process and contamination analysis will be then discussed on micron size particles with ultrathin coating. Different strategies will be then discussed to obtain concentration profiles using Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. Principal component analysis will then be used to successfully convert mass spectrums into big data and extracting similarities between spectrums and samples.