Afm Studies of Surface Roughness of Borophosphosilicate Glass (BPSG) Films and Their Impact on Defect Detection Capability for Sub Micron Vlsi Technology

1992 ◽  
Vol 280 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Rojhantalab ◽  
M. Moinpour ◽  
N. Peter ◽  
M.L.A. Dass ◽  
W. Hough ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTChemically vapor deposited borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG) has been widely used in microelectronic device fabrication as interlayer dielectric film due to its excellent planarization, gettering and flow properties. With device geometry reducing to sub micron levels, there is an increasingly greater emphasis on detection and elimination of sub micron defects particularly on deposited film. In this paper, we report on the evaluation and characterization of the surface roughness of BPSG films of various thicknesses and film compositions deposited on Si substrates using the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The effects of high temperature densification process on the surface roughness are presented. The defect detection capabilities of conventional laser-based particle counters with respect to the surface roughness of BPSG films are investigated.

2013 ◽  
Vol 446-447 ◽  
pp. 306-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudhanshu Dwivedi ◽  
Somnath Biswas

Mixed phase TiO2 thin films of rutile and anatase type crystal orientations were deposited on Si substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. When annealed at 800°C at 1 mbar oxygen pressure for 3 h, the deposited films transform into a single phase of rutile type. Structural and morphological studies of the as-deposited and annealed films were performed with X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy was used for optical characterization of the annealed thin films.


1999 ◽  
Vol 564 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. L. Windt ◽  
J. Dalla Torre ◽  
G. H. Gilmer ◽  
J. Sapjeta ◽  
R. Kalyanaraman ◽  
...  

AbstractWe present experimental results directed at understanding the growth and structure of metallic barrier layer and interconnect films. Numerical simulation results associated with this experimental work are presented in an accompanying paper in these proceedings. Here, thin films of Al, Ti, Cu and Ta have been grown by magnetron sputtering onto oxidized Si substrates. Using a specially-constructed substrate holder, the orientation of the substrate with respect to the growth direction was varied from horizontal to vertical. Films were grown at both low and high argon pressure; in the case of Ta, the cathode power was varied as well. The film structure and in particular the surface roughness was measured by X-ray reflectance and also by atomic force microscopy. We find that the surface roughness increases markedly with orientation angle in the case of Ta and Cu films, and in Ti films grown at high argon pressure. At low pressure, however, the Ti film surface roughness remains constant for all substrate orientations. No variation in roughness with either orientation angle or argon pressure was observed in the Al films. These results suggest that, under certain circumstances, shadowing effects and/or grain orientation (i.e., texture) competition during growth can give rise to lower density, more porous (and thus more rough) films, particularly at large orientation angles, as on sidewalls in sub-micron trenches.


2014 ◽  
Vol 487 ◽  
pp. 106-109
Author(s):  
Nurhafizah Ramli ◽  
Zaliman Sauli ◽  
Vithyacharan Retnasamy ◽  
They Yee Chin ◽  
K. Anwar ◽  
...  

Nowdays Barium strontium titanate (BST) can be applied into many fields of engineering. Its properties attracted more researchers to research and apply it into many fields of study. In this work, sol-gel method of preparing barium strontium titanate (BST) has been used. This work was done with 4 different ratio of x with 4 different deposition layers. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the relation between the ratio of barium (Ba) with different deposition layer and the surface of the substrate. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used in whole work to investigate the crystalline structure and surface roughness of the BST thin films.


2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 531-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verónica Zavala-Alonso ◽  
Gabriel A. Martínez-Castanon ◽  
Nuria Patiño-Marín ◽  
Humberto Terrones ◽  
Kenneth Anusavice ◽  
...  

AbstractThe aim was to characterize the external structure, roughness, and absolute depth profile (ADP) of fluorotic enamel compared with healthy enamel. Eighty extracted human molars were classified into four groups [TFI: 0, control (C); 1–3, mild (MI); 4–5, moderate (MO); 6–9, severe fluorosis (S)] according to the Thylstrup-Fejerskov Index (TFI). All samples were analyzed by atomic force microscopy.The mean values of enamel surface roughness (ESR) in nm were: Group C, 92.6; Group MI, 188.8; Group MO, 246.9; and Group S, 532.2. The mean values of absolute depth profile in nm were: C, 1,065.7; MI, 2,360.7; MO, 2,536.7; and S, 6,146.2. The differences between mean ESR and mean ADP among groups were statistically significant (p < 0.05). This structural study confirms at the nanometer level that there is a positive association between fluorosis severity, ESR, and ADP, and there is an association with the clinical findings of fluorosis measured by TFI as well.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (03) ◽  
pp. 1450020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ştefan Ţălu ◽  
Sebastian Stach ◽  
Muhammad Ikram ◽  
Dinesh Pathak ◽  
Tomas Wagner ◽  
...  

The objective of this work is to quantitatively characterize the 3D complexity of ZnO : TiO 2-organic blended solar cells layers by atomic force microscopy and fractal analysis. ZnO : TiO 2-organic blended solar cells layers were investigated by AFM in tapping-mode in air, on square areas of 25 μm2. A detailed methodology for ZnO : TiO 2-organic blended solar cells layers surface fractal characterization, which may be applied for AFM data, is presented. Detailed surface characterization of the surface topography was obtained using statistical parameters, according with ISO 25178-2: 2012. The fractal dimensions Df values (all with average ± standard deviation), obtained with morphological envelopes method, for: blend D1 ( P 3 HT : PCBM : ZnO : TiO 2 blend with ratio 1:0.35:0.175:0.175 mg in 1 ml of Chlorobenzene) is Df = 2.55 ± 0.01; and for blend D2 ( P 3 HT : PCBM : ZnO : TiO 2 blend with ratio 1:0.55:0.075:0.075 mg in 1 ml of Chlorobenzene) is Df = 2.45 ± 0.01. Denoting the ratios in 1 ml of Chlorobenzene with D1 and D2 articles. The 3D surface roughness of samples revealed a fractal structure at nanometer scale. Fractal and AFM analysis may assist manufacturers in developing ZnO : TiO 2-organic blended solar cells layers with better surface characteristics and provides different yet complementary information to that offered by traditional surface statistical parameters.


2017 ◽  
Vol 742 ◽  
pp. 447-456
Author(s):  
Bastian Brück ◽  
Thomas Guglhoer ◽  
Simon Haug ◽  
Christina Kunzmann ◽  
Michael Schulz ◽  
...  

The topography of a surface consists of structures of different length scales. The surface roughness caused by these structures plays a decisive role in interfacial properties. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) can be applied to measure the surface topography with great accuracy and thus facilitates roughness quantification. Here, however, the data reduction poses a challenge. In a conventional approach, surface roughness parameters are evaluated based on averaging height differences, which leads to values dominated by the largest height differences of the surface topography. To quantify contributions of smaller structures to the roughness, a previous study presented a tunable local background correction, which eliminates structures on a larger than selected scale. Therefore, this method only considers surface structures smaller than the chosen scale. A different approach to quantify surface roughness on all length scales covered by AFM measurements uses Fourier transformation of the surface topography to calculate the power spectral density, which describes the amplitudes of different contributing spatial frequencies.In the current study, a new approach based on power spectral density is used to quantify surface roughness parameters as a function of the length scale of contributions to the surface topography. This procedure allows a comprehensive characterization of surface roughness and an intuitive comparison of different surfaces.The usefulness of this method and its compatibility to local background correction is demonstrated by analyzing several commercially available carbon fibers with and without different fiber surface treatments.


1994 ◽  
Vol 361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott R. Summerfelt ◽  
Dave Kotecki ◽  
Angus Kingon ◽  
H.N. Al-Shareef

ABSTRACTThe formation of Pt hillocks during high temperature processing is a problem when using Pt as a bottom electrode for high dielectric constant materials. The hillock height is frequently larger than the dielectric thickness, degrading the leakage current of the device. In this work, Pt was deposited by electron beam evaporation on in-situ formed 40 nm ZrO2 coated SiO2 / Si substrates. The samples were then annealed at temperatures between 400°C and 700°C for times ranging from 2 min to 40 min. The surface roughness was measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The surface was characterized using Ra, RMS and Zmax over 5 μm × 5μm regions. Zmax is sensitive to hillock formation and Ra is sensitive to changes in general surface roughness. Analysis of Zmax indicates that 100 nm Pt / ZrO2 deposited at 315°C forms hillocks above 450°C during initial heatup. Subsequently, the hillocks decay for temperatures of 600°C and above such that they are almost gone after a 30 min air anneal. In-situ wafer stress measurements of Pt / ZrO2 were performed in O2 at temperatures up to 650°C. The Pt relaxes above 500°C in O2.


2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 93-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
MUBARAK ALI ◽  
ESAH BINTI HAMZAH ◽  
MOHD RADZI HJ. MOHD TOFF

Cathodic Arc Physical Vapor Deposition (CAPVD), a technique used for the deposition of hard coatings, for tooling applications, has many advantages. The main drawback of this technique is the formation of macrodroplets (MDs) during deposition, resulting in films with rougher morphology. Constant etching, by increasing nitrogen gas flow rate up to 200 sccm, helped in reducing the MD size and number; at higher rates, of say 300 sccm, the behavior was reversed. Minimum value of surface roughness recorded at 200 sccm was measured via both surface roughness tester and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Micro-Vickers hardness of TiN -coated tool showed about 564% times increase in hardness than the uncoated one. Scratch tester was used to study the critical loads for the coating and the excellent adhesion achievable, of say 200 sccm, was demonstrated, with relevance to the various modes.


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