Applications of Optical Force Microscopy to MicroelectronicsTechnology

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The objective of this Expedited Award for Novel Research is to develop a computer-controlled optical force microscope that will serve as a diagnostic tool for the characterization of microelectronic devices. The recently developed optical force microscope employs a sharp tip which is scanned across a surface, and its deflection caused by van der Waals forces acting between the surface atoms of the sample and the tip is monitored by a second tip. The sensitivity of this instrument to small variations in the force field drives from the exponential dependence of a tunneling current on the distance between these two tips. The PI and his group have made major advances in development of the optical forces microscope and in the incorporation of sensitive semiconductor diode lasers as the measurement devices. The novelty of their proposed approach is that it uses a nondestructive technique to probe the evanescent fringing electrical fields existing on the surface of a microelectronic device. By using a feedback system, it can follow the topography of a given device to a resolution better than 100 nm. This will enable it to perform several important tasks in testing a new or failed IC not currently possible without invasive probing. For example, it would enable testing of interconnects buried under a passivating layer, and mapping of the electric field distributions in the vicinity of bipolar and CMOS transistors. The project will develop a computerized system that will display the architecture of the structure under investigation on a high-resolution color monitor.