A theoretical framework to obtain interface’s shapes during the high-temperature annealing of high-aspect-ratio gratings

MARCOS F. CASTEZ; ROBERTO C. SALVAREZZA; JUN NAKAMURA; KOICHI SUDOH

APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS

AMER INST PHYSICS

Año: 2010 vol. 97 p. 123104 - 123106

0003-6951

High-temperature annealing applied to solid samples produces important morphologicalmodifications on their surfaces, particularly in high-aspect-ratio gratings. We show, how by meansof a framework based in a nonlinear analysis of the Mullins’ equation J. Appl. Phys. 28, 333 1957 , we can mathematically reproduce surface’s shapes just by measuring a few characteristicfeatures of the interfaces essentially pattern’s amplitudes and wavelengths . We compared ourresults with experimental data on silicon samples, finding a close agreement between experimentalshapes and those theoretically predicted. The introduced framework could be particularly useful inthose situations where no cross-sectional information were available.