Evaluation of Devices and Materials by Transmission Electron Microscopy

With the components of cutting-edge devices becoming smaller and more complicated and their constituent materials becoming more multilayered and diversified, nanometer-order structural control has recently become indispensable. To improve the performance and reliability of manufactured products like these devices, nanometer-order evaluation technology is therefore essential. As examples, this paper introduces four techniques for materials and device analysis that utilize transmission electron microscopy (TEM): three-dimensional observation by electron tomography for evaluating device features controlled at the nanometerlevel, electron holography for visualizing information about the electric and magnetic fields of devices at the nanometer-level, high-resolution TEM observation and electron-energy-loss spectroscopy for analyzing the crystal structure and composition of nanostructure multilayers, and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy for observing the atomic arrangement of ordered alloys and analyzing heteroepitaxial interface structures.