METHOD OF LAYER-BY-LAYER ANALYSIS OF THIN FILMS Russian patent published in 2018 - IPC G01N23/22 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to the study of materials by determining their physical properties, namely the determination of the elemental composition by the method of secondary ion mass spectrometry and can be used to determine the distribution of thin-film material in depth in the manufacture of multi-layer thin-film structures and semiconductor devices. Method of layer-by-layer analysis of thin films involves applying, under the same conditions, a thin film onto two identical substrates, diffusion annealing of one of the obtained samples, placing the samples in a mass spectrometer, a sample subjected to diffusion annealing, and a sample not subjected to diffusion annealing, are successively heated in the volume of the mass spectrometer to a temperature of 200–250 °C, which is maintained for at least 1 hour by an electron beam with a current density of 1–10 mcA/cm² on the surface of the sample on the side of the applied film. Samples are then cooled to room temperature, the time spectra of the secondary ions are removed. Distribution of the secondary ion currents of the thin-film material obtained for each sample is normalized to the corresponding values of the secondary ion currents from the film material at the initial time of removal of the time spectrum. Depth distribution of the film material formed during the diffusion annealing in the subsurface layer of the substrate is determined by subtracting from the normalized distribution determined for the sample subjected to diffusion annealing, of the normalized distribution determined for the sample not subjected to diffusion annealing, which is used to determine the diffusion coefficient of the thin-film material.

EFFECT: increase the accuracy of determining the distribution of thin-film material over the depth of the substrate.

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