Advanced semiconductor diagnosis by multidimensional electron‐beam‐induced current technique

Abstract

We present advanced semiconductor diagnosis by using electron-beam-induced current (EBIC) technique. By varying the parameters such as temperature, accelerating voltage (V(acc)), bias voltage, and stressing time, it is possible to extend EBIC application from conventional defect characterization to advanced device diagnosis. As an electron beam can excite a certain volume even beneath the surface passive layer, EBIC can be effectively employed to diagnose complicated devices with hybrid structure. Three topics were selected to demonstrate EBIC applications. First, the recombination activities of grain boundaries and their interaction with Fe impurity in photovoltaic multicrystalline Si (mc-Si) are clarified by temperature-dependent EBIC. Second, the detection of dislocations between strained-Si and SiGe virtual substrate are shown to overcome the limitation of depletion region. Third, the observation of leakage sites in high-k gate dielectric is demonstrated for the characterization of advanced hybrid device structures.

Self‐consistent charging of PMMA thin film induced by a penetrating electron beam in electron microscopy

“…Note that, under high‐energy e‐beam irradiation, for semiconductor and dielectric samples with high electron mobility, the deposited electrons are easier and faster to transport to the substrate, forming the EBIC, and accordingly the charging intensity inside the film is rather weak 43 . In this case, the charge distribution, the space potential, the emitted current and EBIC should be quite different from the results in this work.…”

Image instability during the electrical measurement in scanning electron microscope

“…Recently, the resistivity measurement of nanowires [1][2][3] has been established by using multi-probe and patterned substrates. Electron-beaminduced current (EBIC) [4,5] studies have also been widely applied for the characterization of multicrystalline Si for photovoltaic applications [6]. Thereby, we have often experienced a change in SE imaging during such electrical measurements.…”