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Depth profiling techniques: how PIXE compares to NRP and MEIS?
Author(s) -
Dos Santos C. E. I.,
Shubeita S. M.,
Amaral L.,
Grande P. L.,
Dias J. F.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
x‐ray spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.447
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1097-4539
pISSN - 0049-8246
DOI - 10.1002/xrs.1327
Subject(s) - nanometre , proton , ion , materials science , oxide , scattering , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , optics , physics , nuclear physics , composite material , organic chemistry , chromatography , metallurgy
The aim of the present work is to check the potentialities of particle‐induced X‐ray emission (PIXE) as an analytical tool for measurement of ultra‐thin film thicknesses in the nanometer scale. To that end, several different thin oxide films (HfO 2 , LaScO 3 , LaAlO 3 and Al 2 O 3 ) in the range of 2–60 nm were grown on crystalline Si. Film thickness measurements using 2.0 and 0.4 MeV proton PIXE, 40 and 200 keV proton medium energy ion scattering (MEIS), and 991.9 keV proton nuclear reaction profiling (NRP) were compared. For the simple target structures studied in this work, the results indicate that PIXE provides thicknesses compatible to those obtained with NRP and MEIS. However, PIXE analysis proved to be difficult in some cases, particularly when close‐by elements with overlapping X‐ray peaks are involved. For such cases, MEIS and NRP present clear advantages over PIXE. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.