Detecting the Smallest Surface Contaminants on Semiconductors

Smaller, more accurate, higher performance and lower priced - that is the formula for success for micro- and nanoelectronics. Miniaturisation plays a crucial economic role to-day and contributes significantly to the key technologies of the 21st century; however, the smaller the structures, the more susceptible they are to minimal contaminations.

Within the scope of ANNA, the European cooperation project, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) is working in its laboratory at the electron storage ring BESSY II in Berlin for the first time, together with external users, at selected measuring sites for the use of synchrotron radiation. The international cooperation under the umbrella of ANNA is to concentrate research competence Europe-wide. In this case, it is a matter of findings on the physical-chemical characteristics of semiconductor surfaces and nanolayers as well as the further development of reference-specimen-free analysis methods for detect-ing the surface contamination and layer characteristics.