Advances in experimental technique for quantitative two-dimensional dopant profiling by scanning capacitance microscopy

Several advances have been made toward the achievement of quantitative two-dimensional dopant and carrier profiling. To improve the dielectric and charge properties of the oxide–silicon interface, a method of low temperature heat treatment has been developed which produces an insulating layer with consistent quality and reproducibility. After a standard polishing procedure is applied to cross-sectional samples, the samples are heated to 300 °C for 30 min under ultraviolet illumination. This additional surface treatment dramatically improves dielectric layer uniformity, scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM) signal to noise ratio, and C–V curve flat band offset. Examples of the improvement in the surface quality and comparisons of converted SCM data with secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) data are shown. A SCM tip study has also been performed that indicates significant tip depletion problems can occur. It is shown that doped silicon tips are often depleted by the applied SCM bias voltage causing errors...