Grazing Incidence Small Angle X-Ray Scattering Study on Low Dielectric Thin Films

Highly porous silica films with pore size in the nanometer scale are being extensively studied as potential candidates for interlevel dielectrics. Because these dielectric materials appear in the form of thin films with a thickness of only several thousand Angstroms, conventional techniques are difficult to be readily applied to study their structure and porosity. We employed small angle scattering in the grazing incidence geometry in this study. Using high resolution xray beamline with synchrotron radiation source, we demonstrate that the small angle x-ray scatteirng (SAXS) data of the porous films can be obtained. The structure of sol-gel derived silica - xerogel films on silicon substrate studied by specular reflectivity and grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering (GISAXS) will be presented.