High Resolution and High Sensitivity Imaging of Charge Distribution

Physical characterization of semiconductor device has always been a challenging task for device engineers and researchers. Up to now, standard methods for characterizing semiconductors did not provide an effective means for determining two-dimensional quantities of sub-device scale. These methods include Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS), Spreading Sheet Resistance Profiling (SRP), and one-dimensional Capacitance Voltage (C-V), etc. With the advent of smaller device geometry and high reliability requirements, new characterization tools are needed. As alternative approaching tools, various types of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) have been applied to not only characterizing semiconductor devices but also monitoring semiconductor device processes. Scanning Capacitance Microscopy (SCM) combined with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) is one of the powerful methods for the characterization of semiconductor devices due to its non-destructive technique and high spatial resolution.