In-situ analysis of special applications such as surface modification, failure analysis, and surface chemical analysis
Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) is a semiconductor with a wide range of applications extending from gamma or x-ray detectors to solar cells. Due to the heterogeneity of the CdTe compound, the planarity of the focused ion beam (FIB) etched structures is uneven and requires FIB milling process optimization.
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Published with courtesy: Ondrej Sik and Martin Konecny, CEITEC BUT, Czechia, and Veronika Hegrová, NenoVision, Czechia
Microcrystalline silicon is a silicon film where the sizes of the silicon crystals are in the order of dozens of nanometers. The μc-Si: H thin films are suitable for various devices, such as TFTs, thin solar cells with larger IR absorption, and more stable against sun radiation. LiteScope supports conductive AFM (cAFM) analysis inside SEM, which helps to easily localize particular structures and to assess conductivity mapping with nanometer precision.
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Published with courtesy: RNDr. Antonín Fejfar, Czech Academy of Science, Czechia
Metastable Fe78Ni22 thin film grown on a copper substrate has the potential for magnetic patterning - it is paramagnetic at room temperature but can be transformed by the FIB irradiation into a ferromagnetic material. Simultaneous measurement of AFM and SEM signals revealed that the crystallography transformation is accompanied by a topography change.
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Published with courtesy: Lukas Flajsman, CEITEC BUT, Czechia
Due to miniaturization, failure analysis of advanced integrated circuits is possible only by local-focused ion beam (FIB) delayering. Planarity and roughness of delayered surfaces need to be analyzed.
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Gallium Nitride (GaN) is a very promising material for electronic and optoelectronic applications, however, a variety of dislocations can occur at the different material interface, which leads to low-quality films.
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Published with courtesy: Roman Gröger, IPM CAS, Czechia
Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) provides elemental, chemical state, and molecular information from surfaces of solid materials. The alloy with lithium and aluminum particles is used for the sensitivity verification of SIMS detectors for light elements.
Correlation of SEM ToF-SIMS with AFM provides the missing sample topography and allows the calculation of e.g. sputter rates to optimize the process, which is crucial especially for heterogeneous materials.
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