Scanning microwave microscopy of buried CMOS interconnect lines with nanometer resolution

Abstract

This paper reports scanning microwave microscopy of CMOS interconnect aluminum lines both bare and buried under oxide. In both cases, a spatial resolution of 190 ± 70 nm was achieved, which was comparable or better than what had been reported in the literature. With the lines immersed in water to simulate high-k dielectric, the signal-to-noise ratio degraded significantly, but the image remained as sharp as before, especially after averaging across a few adjacent scans. These results imply that scanning microwave microscopy can be a promising technique for non-destructive nano-characterization of both CMOS interconnects buried under oxide and live biological samples immersed in water.

An approach to determine solution properties in micro pipes by near-field microwave microscopy

“…On the other hand, NSMM on liquid materials have weaknesses that samples are usually high loss but merits that they are most probably highly potential in biochemical, biomedical and pharmaceutical industries. From previous reports, scientists not only gained responses of common solutions (e.g., deionized water [10], droplets of water, eosin and sodium chloride solution [11], different concentrations of saline solutions [12]) or samples buried under water [13], but also further biological tissues [14], especially cell images (e.g., yeast cells [15], human monocytic leukemia cells [16], breast cancer cells [17]).…”