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Crystalline effects on depth resolution in AES depth profiling
Author(s) -
Kajiwara K.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.740220108
Subject(s) - microcrystalline , sputtering , auger electron spectroscopy , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , auger , superlattice , alloy , resolution (logic) , chemistry , thin film , optoelectronics , crystallography , nanotechnology , metallurgy , atomic physics , physics , chromatography , nuclear physics , artificial intelligence , computer science
An evaluation of the depth resolution of sputter‐assisted Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) has been studied for semiconductor superlattices. Zalar et al. have shown that sample rotation is effective in improving the depth resolution of AES depth profiling. Multilayers with two kinds of crystalline states were prepared to test the effectiveness of sample rotation. First, a microcrystalline Zr/Nb (10 nm/10 nm) multilayer was deposited by dc‐sputtering. Secondly, an AlAs/GaAs (10 nm/9 nm) and an InP/InGaAs (3 nm/3 nm) single crystalline superlattice were grown by metal‐organic chemical vapor deposition. AES depth profiling with Ar + ion sputtering was performed on these multilayers with and without sample rotation. Comparing the rotational depth profiling results with those obtained on stationary samples, it is found that, in the cases of the Zr/Nb and the InP/InGaAs multilayers, the depth resolution was considerably improved by sample rotation while in the case of AIAs/GaAs multilayer the depth resolution was only little improved by sample rotation. It is shown that the effectiveness of sample rotation strongly depends on the crystalline states of samples and on the degree of preferential sputtering.