RESUMEN
Despite many studies of subsurface imaging of carbon nanotube (CNT)-polymer composites via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), significant controversy exists concerning the imaging depth and contrast mechanisms. We studied CNT-polyimide composites and, by three-dimensional reconstructions of captured stereo-pair images, determined that the maximum SEM imaging depth was typically hundreds of nanometers. The contrast mechanisms were investigated over a broad range of beam accelerating voltages from 0.3 to 30 kV, and ascribed to modulation by embedded CNTs of the effective secondary electron (SE) emission yield at the polymer surface. This modulation of the SE yield is due to non-uniform surface potential distribution resulting from current flows due to leakage and electron beam induced current. The importance of an external electric field on SEM subsurface imaging was also demonstrated. The insights gained from this study can be generally applied to SEM nondestructive subsurface imaging of conducting nanostructures embedded in dielectric matrices such as graphene-polymer composites, silicon-based single electron transistors, high resolution SEM overlay metrology or e-beam lithography, and have significant implications in nanotechnology.
RESUMEN
The various products from the reaction of chlorine (Cl) with the adatom layer of the Si(111)-(7x7) surface have been identified with scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Initially, a single Cl atom reacts with the adatom dangling bond. At higher surface coverage, additional Cl atoms insert themselves into the Si-Si backbonds between the adatom and rest-atom layers, producing adatoms that have reacted with two or three Cl atoms. These products are characterized by different registries with respect to the underlying rest layer and appear in STM images as adatoms of different sizes, consistent with the breaking of Si-Si backbonds and the formation ofnew Si-Cl bonds.
RESUMEN
The use of flared tip and bi-directional servo control in some recent atomic force microscopes (AFM) has made it possible for these advanced AFMs to image structures of general shapes with undercut surfaces. AFM images are distorted representations of sample surfaces due to the dilation produced by the finite size of the tip. It is necessary to obtain the tip shape in order to correct such tip distortion. This paper presents a noise-tolerant approach that can for the first time estimate a general 3-dimensional (3D) tip shape from its scanned image in such AFMs. It extends an existing blind tip estimation method. With the samples, images, and tips described by dexels, a representation that can describe general 3D shapes, the new approach can estimate general tip shapes, including reentrant features such as undercut lines.
RESUMEN
The magnitudes of the challenges facing electron-based metrology for post-CMOS technology are reviewed. Directed selfassembly, nanophotonics/plasmonics, and resistive switches and selectors, are examined as exemplars of important post-CMOS technologies. Materials, devices, and architectures emerging from these technologies pose new metrology requirements: defect detection, possibly subsurface, in soft materials, accurate measurement of size, shape, and roughness of structures for nanophotonic devices, contamination-free measurement of surface-sensitive structures, and identification of subtle structural, chemical, or electronic changes of state associated with switching in non-volatile memory elements. Electron-beam techniques are examined in the light of these emerging requirements. The strong electron-matter interaction provides measurable signal from small sample features, rendering electron-beam methods more suitable than most for nanometer-scale metrology, but as is to be expected, solutions to many of the measurement challenges are yet to be demonstrated. The seeds of possible solutions are identified when they are available.
RESUMEN
The ability to image complex general three-dimensional (3D) structures, including reentrant surfaces and undercut features using scanning probe microscopy, is becoming increasing important in many small length-scale applications. This paper presents a dexel data representation and its algorithm implementation for scanning probe microscope (SPM) image simulation (morphological dilation) and surface reconstruction (erosion) on such general 3D structures. Validation using simulations, some of which are modeled upon actual atomic force microscope data, demonstrates that the dexel representation can efficiently simulate SPM imaging and reconstruct the sample surface from measured images, including those with reentrant surfaces and undercut features.
RESUMEN
The combination of scanning electron microscopy for high spatial resolution, images from multiple angles to provide 3D information, and commercially available stereo photogrammetry software for 3D reconstruction offers promise for nanometer-scale dimensional metrology in 3D. A method is described to test 3D photogrammetry software by the use of virtual samples-mathematical samples from which simulated images are made for use as inputs to the software under test. The virtual sample is constructed by wrapping a rough skin with any desired power spectral density around a smooth near-trapezoidal line with rounded top corners. Reconstruction is performed with images simulated from different angular viewpoints. The software's reconstructed 3D model is then compared to the known geometry of the virtual sample. Three commercial photogrammetry software packages were tested. Two of them produced results for line height and width that were within close to 1 nm of the correct values. All of the packages exhibited some difficulty in reconstructing details of the surface roughness.
RESUMEN
The width and shape of 10nm to 12 nm wide lithographically patterned SiO2 lines were measured in the scanning electron microscope by fitting the measured intensity vs. position to a physics-based model in which the lines' widths and shapes are parameters. The approximately 32 nm pitch sample was patterned at Intel using a state-of-the-art pitch quartering process. Their narrow widths and asymmetrical shapes are representative of near-future generation transistor gates. These pose a challenge: the narrowness because electrons landing near one edge may scatter out of the other, so that the intensity profile at each edge becomes width-dependent, and the asymmetry because the shape requires more parameters to describe and measure. Modeling was performed by JMONSEL (Java Monte Carlo Simulation of Secondary Electrons), which produces a predicted yield vs. position for a given sample shape and composition. The simulator produces a library of predicted profiles for varying sample geometry. Shape parameter values are adjusted until interpolation of the library with those values best matches the measured image. Profiles thereby determined agreed with those determined by transmission electron microscopy and critical dimension small-angle x-ray scattering to better than 1 nm.
RESUMEN
To the extent that tips are not perfectly sharp, images produced by scanned probe microscopies (SPM) such as atomic force microscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy are only approximations of the specimen surface. Tip-induced distortions are significant whenever the specimen contains features with aspect ratios comparable to the tip's. Treatment of the tip-surface interaction as a simple geometrical exclusion allows calculation of many quantities important for SPM dimensional metrology. Algorithms for many of these are provided here, including the following: (1) calculating an image given a specimen and a tip (dilation), (2) reconstructing the specimen surface given its image and the tip (erosion), (3) reconstructing the tip shape from the image of a known "tip characterizer" (erosion again), and (4) estimating the tip shape from an image of an unknown tip characterizer (blind reconstruction). Blind reconstruction, previously demonstrated only for simulated noiseless images, is here extended to images with noise or other experimental artifacts. The main body of the paper serves as a programmer's and user's guide. It includes theoretical background for all of the algorithms, detailed discussion of some algorithmic problems of interest to programmers, and practical recommendations for users.