Design and characterization of a metal-ion beam and nitrogen-radical beam source PVD system with in-situ AES constitution and HEED structure analysis

Abstract

The construction and the operation mode of an ultrahigh vacuum PVD system with integrated electron spectroscopic surface analysis is described. It consists of two metal-ion beam sources and a nitrogen radical beam source. High-energy electron diffraction (HEED) with grazing incidence of the electron beam is applied in-situ to determine the crystallographic data, as texture and structure of the growing layer. Chemical composition and bonding states of the components of the layer are determined also in-situ using an Auger electron spectrometer (AES). In-situ is taken to mean that analysis takes place during deposition of the layer. This work shows that the information depth of HEED with grazing incidence of the beam (theta< 1 degrees ) is of the same order of magnitude as the information depthof AES i.e. a few atom layers. This enables constitution and structure of the near-surface region of the growing layer to be directly determined as a function of the PVD parameters. In the initial experiments Cu/Al bilayers, homogeneous Cu(3)N and heterogeneous Cu/Cu(3)N layers were deposited. The influence of the Cu-ion energy and of the radical portion in the nitrogen reactive gas on the formation of the homogeneous Cu(3)N layer was investigated.

In situ Auger probe enabling epitaxy composition control of alloys by elemental surface analysis

“…Although AES has historically been an ex situ technique with a few exceptions, [16][17][18][19] AES is able to detect nearly all elements, making it ideal for thin film growth monitoring, including light elements. 20 Herein, we demonstrate the capabilities and applications of an Auger probe (AP), the Staib AP.…”