SBIR/STTR Phase II: Gas-Cluster Ion Source for Mass Spectrometer and Microelectronic Applications

这个小型企业创新研究二期项目将设计、制造和测试一个原型气簇离子束（GCIB）溅射工具，用于对薄膜进行单层特定表面分析的深度剖面。应用将是在微电子工业中至关重要的多层薄膜，包括半导体，磁性传感器中的金属，以及光子和微光学器件中的介电材料。溅射工具预计将满足苛刻的性能规格，包括与质谱相结合的深度分辨率小于1纳米。这种GCIB工具将专门用于使用表面分析仪器进行原位溅射，包括二次离子质谱仪（SIMS），俄歇电子光谱仪（AES）和x射线光电子光谱仪（XPS）。最重要的动机是微电子技术对精确溅射深度测量的迫切需要。第一阶段的工作证明了这些GCIB方法具有接近原子的光滑度，高深度分辨率和高二次离子产率。较小的仪器设计问题限制了集群光束暴露均匀性，这人为地限制了测量的平均深度分辨率。直接的工程解决方案是众所周知的，预计将在第二阶段产生改进，将提供远低于1纳米的深度分辨率。提出的技术将使具有更薄薄膜的下一代微电子器件的分析成为可能。Epion是第一家也是唯一一家生产GCIB系统的公司。该工具的原型将使电子材料加工和制造业的许多领域具有广泛的适用性。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will design, fabricate and test aprototype gas-cluster ion-beam (GCIB) sputtering tool for depth profiles withmonolayer-specific surface analysis of thin films. Applications will be to multilayerthin films of key importance in the microelectronics industries including semiconductors,metals in magnetic sensors, and dielectrics in photonic and micro-optical devices. Thesputtering tool is expected to meet aggressive performance specifications including depthresolution of less than 1 nm in conjunction with mass spectrometry. This GCIB tool willbe designed particularly for in-situ sputtering with surface-analytical instrumentsincluding the secondary-ion mass spectrometer (SIMS), the Auger electron spectrometer(AES) and the x-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS). The overriding motivation is thecritical need in microelectronics for techniques to obtain accurate sputter depthmeasurements. The Phase-I effort demonstrated those GCIB methods with argon clusterssputter with near-atomic smoothness, high depth resolution and high secondary-ion yields.Minor instrumental design issues limited the cluster beam exposure uniformity and thisartificially limited the average depth resolution measured. Straightforward engineeringsolutions are well known and are expected to yield improvements in Phase II that willprovide depth resolution of well below 1 nm.The proposed technology will enable analysis of next-generation microelectronics deviceshaving much thinner films. Epion is the first and only to manufacture GCIB systems. Thetool to be prototyped will enable and have a wide applicability to many areas of theelectronic materials processing and manufacturing industry.