Structural and Materials Characterization

SEM (Zeiss Gemini)

• High resolution (automated) imaging of materials and devices
• In high vacuum. Can handle to 4” wafers, short loading time.
• Stage precision is ~3um; automated alignment possible to structures
• Tilt stage for edge-on imaging
• EBSD (electron backscatter diffraction) – gives information of material & crystal structure
• (e.g., grain orientation, misorientation between grains(angles), grain size & mapping)
• ECCI (electron channeling contrast imaging) – can identify defects e.g. dislocations
• Does not have EDS/EDX'

Widefield Optical Microscope (Zeiss Vario)

• Low resolution, wide area (wafer scale) imaging of materials and devices
• In air. Can handle up to 6” wafers
• Fully automatic imaging of any number of specified points
• Magnification x5 to x150 (~100um f.o.v.)
• Differential interference contrast (DIC) imaging

AFM (Oxford Jupiter)

• Surface structure and topography, surface electrical properties
• Devices and planar materials
• In air. Can handle up to 8” wafers.
• SCM (scanning capacitance microscopy) – surface capacitance & dielectric parameters
• KPFM (Kelvin probe) – surface work function i.e. resolving different materials
• PFM (piezoforce microscopy) – useful for photonic materials
• c-AFM (conductive AFM) – dielectrics and surface oxide defects

X-ray (Rigaku SmartLab)

• Material thickness and layer structure, crystallographic structure
• In air, up to 4” wafers.
• Min beam size ~0.5mm
• XRR (X-ray reflectometry) – thin film thickness, layer structure
• XRD (X-ray diffraction) – material crystallographic structure, includes RSM, pole figures, theta-2theta scans
• Wafer mapping – all above at different positions using a camera mounted above the sample

STM (Omicron-Scientia)

• LT-Nanoprobe system, can image down to 4K
• Ultra-high atomic resolution imaging of surfaces with 4 independently controlled tips
• In UHV, flag style sample plates
• Vacuum suitcase transfer
• STM (scanning tunnelling microscopy) – simultaneously using 4 independently controlled tips
• STS (scanning tunnelling spectroscopy)
• AFM – using qPlus sensor
• System has a preparation chamber for heating (to 1200C) and ports for other equipment

Scanning Optical Microscope (Sensofar)

• High resolution 3D optical profiler
• Small area 3D surface imaging
• In air. Can handle up to 12” wafers.
• Non-contact automatic topographic imaging
• Interference microscopy; thickness of transparent/semi-transparent materials
• Confocal microscopy

FIB/SEM (Helios 5 UC)

• Ga+ focussed ion beam system
• Microfabrication milling of structures and SEM imaging.
• Lamella preparation for TEM analysis

TEM (TF Talos 200I, tool at NBI cleanroom)

• Detailed real space imaging & reciprocal(diffraction) inside thin films
• Lamella cross section, max 10um in length by FIB,
• Layer thickness information and elemental composition of the thin film using EDX.
• High resolution TEM to see lattice and planes
• Selected area electron diffraction (SAED)
• High resolution STEM imaging, gives Z-contrast imaging of atoms.
• Bright Field imaging

Contact: 

Jim Webb

Structural and Materials Characterization Lead

E-mail: james.webb@nbi.ku.dk 

Team: Characterization

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