Reference nano-dimensional metrology by scanning transmission electron microscopy

摘要

Traceable and accurate reference dimensional metrology of nano-structures by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) is introduced in the paper. Two methods, one based on the crystal lattice constant and the other based on the pitch of a feature pair, were applied to calibrate the TEM magnification. The threshold value, which was defined as the half-intensity of boundary materials, is suggested to extract the boundary position of features from the TEM image. Experimental investigations have demonstrated the high potential of the proposed methods. For instance, the standard deviation from ten repeated measurements of a line structure with a nominal 100 nm critical dimension (CD) reaches 1σ = 0.023 nm, about 0.02%. By intentionally introduced defocus and larger sample alignment errors, the investigation shows that these influences may reach 0.20 and 1.3 nm, respectively, indicating the importance of high-quality TEM measurements. Finally, a strategy for disseminating the destructive TEM results is introduced. Using this strategy, the CD of a reference material has been accurately determined. Its agreement over five independent TEM measurements is below 1.2 nm.