Metallic thin film thickness determination using electron probe microanalysis

C.S. CAMPOS; COLEONI, ENRIQUE; J.C. TRINCAVELLI; J. KASCHNY; R. HUBLER; M.R.F. SOARES; M.A.Z. VASCONCELLOS

X-RAY SPECTROMETRY

JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD

Lugar: LOndres; Año: 2001 vol. 30 p. 253 - 259

0049-8246

An experimental procedure to determine thin film thicknesses by using electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) is presented. Several monoelemental films of Al, Ti, Cr, Cu, Nb, Mo and Au, with different thicknesses, deposited on a Silicon substrate, were characterized by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry for thickness measurement. Charateristic x-ray intensities were measured for films, substrates and bulk standards. The ratios of these intensities (k-ratio) were compared with those obtained from Monte Carlo simulations based on the subroutine package PENELOPE, and good agreement was found. The results from simulation and experiment were added to build calibration curves of k-ratio vs. thickness for the monoelemental films investigated. A simple analytical function was fitted to these curves and the behaviour of its parameters with atomic number was studied.