Deep sub micrometer imaging of defects in copper pillars by X-ray tomography in a SEM

Laloum, D.; Lorut, F.; Bertheau, J.; Audoit, G.; Bleuet, Pierre

doi:10.1016/j.micron.2013.10.014

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Copper and even Sn analyses have even been tested 14,21 . By using a dedicated electron gun and column for the x-ray production and by going to higher electron beam voltage, higher-Z materials could be investigated.…”

Section: X-ray Imagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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SEM-based system for 100nm x-ray tomography for the analysis of porous silicon

et al. 2014

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Synchrotron radiation is a good candidate for 3D imaging at high resolution. However, the difficult access to 3 rd generation synchrotron sources is prohibitive for daily analyses and we present hereafter a step towards x-ray nanotomography using a laboratory system. To have a lens-free system, we use the electron beam of an SEM to produce x-rays through the interaction between the SEM electron beam and a metallic anode. The inherent x-ray source size can be properly shaped using different anode materials and geometries. This flexible system makes it possible to perform xray imaging at energies of up to 10keV and resolution down to 100nm. Because of a low SNR, the exposure time is long and forces to have a low angular sampling. This is counterbalanced by using algebraic reconstruction algorithms.The technique has been applied to the study of plasma FIB-prepared macroporous silicon samples. Those samples come from the controlled porosification of 200mm silicon wafer, with thicknesses from few nm to few hundreds of micrometers. We quantified the 3D pore network, which is of interest for the optimization of the production of such materials.

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Section: X-ray Imagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An elegant way to reduce the source size is to use thin targets; for instance, a 200nm deposition of W on a Si substrate will confine the source size to that thickness 8,14 . Using extremely thin targets 12 , 50nm resolution could be achieved, but this is at the expense of the x-ray flux.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SEM-based system for 100nm x-ray tomography for the analysis of porous silicon

et al. 2014

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“…Although the acquisition time can be relatively short with micro‐scanners, it is prohibitive for the particular case of lab‐based CT system hosted in a SEM, which prevents from systematic analysis (up to 25 h can be necessary to record a data set). However, such a system is well suited for local, high resolution analysis of micrometer sized samples (Bruyndonckx et al ., ; Laloum et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Reduction of the scanning time by total variation minimization reconstruction for X‐ray tomography in a SEM

Laloum

Printemps

Sánchez

et al. 2014

Journal of Microscopy

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Total variation minimization is applied to the particular case of X-ray tomography in a scanning electron microscope. To prove the efficiency of this reconstruction method, noise-free and noisy data based on the Shepp & Logan phantom have been simulated. These simulations confirm that Total variation minimization-reconstruction algorithm better manages data containing low number of projections with respect to simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique or filtered backprojection, even in the presence of noise. The algorithm has been applied to real data sets, with a low angular sampling and a high level of noise. Two samples containing micro-interconnections have been analyzed and 3D reconstructions show that Total variation minimization-based algorithm performs well even with 60 projections in order to properly recover a 500 nm diameter void inside a copper interconnection.

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“…Several approaches exist to push the limits, such as detectors with sub-micron resolution using a scintillator imaged with an optical microscope [1], X-ray sources with advanced electron focusing optics, e.g. modified scanning electron microscopes [2], or spatially confined X-ray anodes to limit the volume of the generation of X-rays [3]. Typically, micron resolution or submicron resolution can be achieved with these approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%