Direct Mapping of Strain in a Strained Silicon Transistor by High-Resolution Electron Microscopy

Hüe, Florian; Hÿtch, Martin; Bender, Hugo; Houdellier, Florent; Claverie, A.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.156602

Cited by 171 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…26,16 Initially, we performed full threedimensional simulations ͑150 nm thick͒ with free surfaces and a geometry that mimics that one revealed by TEM bright-field images ͓Fig. 1͑a͔͒.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Strain mapping of tensiley strained silicon transistors with embedded Si1−yCy source and drain by dark-field holography

Hüe

Hÿtch

Houdellier

et al. 2009

Applied Physics Letters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dark-field holography, a new transmission electron microscopy technique for mapping strain distributions at the nanoscale, is used to characterize strained-silicon n-type transistors with a channel width of 65 nm. The strain in the channel region, which enhances electron mobilities, is engineered by recessed Si0.99C0.01 source and drain stressors. The strain distribution is measured across an array of five transistors over a total area of 1.6 μm wide. The longitudinal tensile strain reaches a maximum of 0.58%±0.02% under the gate oxide. Theoretical strain maps obtained by finite element method agree well with the experimental results.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Strain mapping of tensiley strained silicon transistors with embedded Si1−yCy source and drain by dark-field holography

Hüe

Hÿtch

Houdellier

et al. 2009

Applied Physics Letters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…8 Geometric phase analysis ͑GPA͒ of the HRTEM images 9 was used to directly map the distribution of zz Si , within the whole structures with nanometer resolution and high precision of 0.1%. 10,11 Image analysis was carried out using GPA Phase 2.0 ͑HREM Research, Inc.͒ a plug-in for the software package DigitalMicrograph ͑Gatan͒. Thin film relaxation was corrected for by assuming that strains were fully relaxed in the viewing direction.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the influence of elastic strain on the accommodation of carbon atoms into substitutional sites in strained Si:C layers grown on Si substrates

Cherkashin

Hÿtch

Houdellier

et al. 2009

Applied Physics Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

International audienceMeasurements of strain and composition are reported in tensile strained 10- and 30-nm-thick Si:C layers grown by chemical vapor deposition on a Si (001) substrate. Total carbon concentration varies from 0.62% to 1.97%. Strain measurements were realized by high-resolution x-ray diffraction, convergent-beam electron diffraction, and geometric phase analysis of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy cross-sectional images. Raman spectroscopy was used for the deduction of the substitutional concentration. We demonstrate that in addition to the growth conditions, strain accumulating during deposition, thus depending on a layer thickness, has an influence on the final substitutional carbon composition within a strained Si:C laye

show abstract

“…Although convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) and geometric phase analysis (GPA) have been used previously by several groups for these types of measurements (Toda et al, 2001;Hÿtch et al, 2003;Benedetti et al, 2004;Toh et al, 2005;Chung et al, 2008;Hüe et al, 2008), there have been no reports directly comparing the strain measurements from the two techniques for the same device structure. Because there are relative advantages and limitations of these techniques for strain measurement, a direct comparison of these two techniques should provide a better understanding of these.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of convergent beam electron diffraction and geometric phase analysis for strain measurement in a strained silicon device

Diercks¹,

Lian²,

Chung³

et al. 2011

Journal of Microscopy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Key words. Convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED), geometric phase analysis (GPA), high-angle annular-dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF STEM), local strain measurement. SummaryConvergent beam electron diffraction and geometric phase analysis were used to measure strain in the gate channel of a p-type strained silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. These measurements were made on exactly the same transmission electron microscopy specimen allowing for direct comparison of the relative advantages of each technique. The trends in the strain values show good agreement in both the [110] and [001] directions, but the absolute strain values are offset from each other. This difference in the absolute strain measured using the two techniques is attributed to the way the reference strain is defined for each.Because strained silicon is being used on a highly localized scale to enhance the electrical performance of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices (Chidambaram et al., 2004;Thompson et al., 2004), techniques for the quantitative measurement of elastic strain with high spatial resolution are increasingly necessary. Although convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) and geometric phase analysis (GPA) have been used previously by several groups for these types of measurements (Toda et al., 2001;Hÿtch et al., 2003;Benedetti et al., 2004;Toh et al., 2005;Chung et al., 2008;Hüe et al., 2008), there have been no reports directly comparing the strain measurements from the two techniques for the same device structure. Because there are relative advantages and limitations of these techniques for strain measurement, a direct comparison of these two techniques should provide a better understanding of these. In CBED, a small, convergent probe is used to produce diffraction from both the zero-order and higher-order Laue zones (ZOLZ and HOLZ, respectively). The HOLZ diffraction appears as pairs of lines in the diffraction patterns -rings of excess lines diffracted to a relatively large angle and corresponding deficit lines in the central disk. Because these lines occur due to Bragg diffraction at relatively large angles, their positions are very sensitive to small changes in the crystal lattice. The sensitivity of lattice measurements using this technique can be on the order of 10 −4 . (Twigg et al., 1987;Kramer & Mayer, 1999) However, most silicon-based devices are oriented along 110 directions, and CBED patterns along this direction do not produce HOLZ lines under typically utilized CBED-operating conditions due to the large spacing between planes in the reciprocal lattice along this direction. Therefore, measurements using this technique are performed by tilting away from the 110 axis, typically along the 004 Kikuchi band, resulting in a loss of lateral resolution. This is particularly important as the scale of microelectronic devices continues to decrease. The degree of resolution loss depends on the angle of tilt from the [110] direction, so efforts have been ...

show abstract

Direct Mapping of Strain in a Strained Silicon Transistor by High-Resolution Electron Microscopy

Cited by 171 publications

References 28 publications

Strain mapping of tensiley strained silicon transistors with embedded Si1−yCy source and drain by dark-field holography

Strain mapping of tensiley strained silicon transistors with embedded Si1−yCy source and drain by dark-field holography

On the influence of elastic strain on the accommodation of carbon atoms into substitutional sites in strained Si:C layers grown on Si substrates

Comparison of convergent beam electron diffraction and geometric phase analysis for strain measurement in a strained silicon device

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About