Structural analysis of thin films of novel polynorbornene derivatives by grazing incidence X-ray scattering and specular X-ray reflectivity along with ellipsometry

Abstract

In the present study, structural analyses using synchrotron grazing incidence Xray scattering, specular reflectivity and ellipsometry were performed on thin films of two novel polynorbornene derivatives, chiral poly(norbornene acid methyl ester) and racemic poly(norbornene acid n-butyl ester), which are potential low dielectric constant materials for advanced microelectronic and display applications. These analyses provided important information on the structure, electron density gradient across the film thickness, chain orientation, refractive index and thermal expansion characteristics of the polymers in substrate-supported thin films. The structural characteristics and properties of the thin films depended on the tacticity of the polymer chain and were further influenced by the film thickness and thermal annealing history.

Polystyrene-b-polyisoprene thin films with hexagonally perforated layer structure: quantitative grazing-incidence X-ray scattering analysis

“…Grazing-incidence X-ray scattering (GIXS) is widely used to overcome the drawbacks of transmission scattering and microscopy techniques (Heo, Oh et al, 2007;Yoon, Yang et al, 2007;Yoon, Choi et al, 2007;Yoon et al, 2006;Kim et al, 2005;Omote et al, 2003;Lazzari, 2002). This approach has several important advantages over TXS (Heo, Park et al, 2007;Lee et al, 2007;: (i) a high-intensity scattering pattern is always obtained, even for films of nanoscale thickness, because the X-ray beam path length through the film plane is sufficiently long; (ii) there is no unfavorable scattering from the substrate on which the film is deposited; and (iii) sample preparation is easy.…”