Pulsed laser atom probe analysis of semiconductor materials

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Abstract
SUMMARY: As the size of semiconductor devices is reduced the active volumes of material in each device is also decreased. Under these circumstances it becomes more important to understand the microchemistry of semiconducting materials, as small fluctuations in composition can dramatically affect both the operation of the devices, and of the contacts to semiconductors. Atom probe microanalysis has been shown to be able to analyse the microchemistry of metallic materials with plane‐by‐plane resolution, and by using a pulsed laser to replace the more conventional voltage pulses the analysis of semiconducting and insulating materials becomes possible. The pulsed laser atom probe has been shown to give very accurate chemical analysis of the stoichiometry of extremely small volumes of III‐V compound semiconductors, and the composition of the interfacial layer between silicon dioxide and silicon has been identified as SiO of thickness about 0.3 nm. It has been shown to be possible to prepare specimens for analysis from thin films of semiconductors, thus allowing the microanalysis of a wide range of materials that are deposited in thin film form.