Depth protiling of aluminium metallization in microelectronics devices by Auger or S I M S analysis is impeded by the severe sputter-induced roughening which causes a serious loss in depth resolution. This paper discusses strategies to avoid this deteriorating eflect : optimization of the bombardment angle, sample rotation during sputtering and the use of heavy or reactive ions. The best depth resolutions were achieved by sputtering with normal incidence 15 keV 02+ ions. In this case, an interface width of 12 nm was measured for a film of 1 p m thickness. This is an improvement by more than a factor of 10 compared to the extremely poor depth resolution of 160 nm resulting from routine analysis parameters (Ar+ ions incident at 55").
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