Liquid Contact Probing inside the SEM

电子设备尺寸的缩减仍然是一项持续的任务，多年来一直是半导体行业的基础。因此，高分辨率的定性测量是必不可少的，旧技术的改进和新技术的发明是必要的。近年来，许多新技术被提出用于纳米技术中材料的局部表征。该行业中最常用的表征技术是晶片上的接触探测，其分辨率仅限于微米级，该方案旨在通过使用液态金属的纳米液滴在纳米结构和探针器之间建立电接触来将接触探测带到纳米尺度。因此，将在扫描电子显微镜内制造一个全自动的机器人探测站。通过建立液-固-液界面，以合金Ga-In-Sn作为电极，将纳米精度的拾取和放置程序用于探头的新对准工艺。这将为被测设备提供简单且无磨损的电接触。该项目的最后部分将制造一个原型探头和一个定制的校准套件，利用液态金属进行纳米射频接触探测。此外，液态金属将作为功能材料在扫描电子显微镜内进行自动操作，用于纳米技术中的电气和机械应用。

Downscaling of electronic device dimensions is still an ongoing task and has been the basis of the semiconductor industry for years. Therefore, qualitative measurements with high resolution are indispensable and the enhancement of old and the invention of new techniques are necessary.In the last years, a lot of new techniques have been proposed for the local characterization of materials in nanotechnology. The mostly used characterization technique in this industry is on-wafer contact probing, which has been limited in its resolution to the micrometer scale.This proposal aims at bringing the contact probing to the nanometer dimension by using nanodroplets of liquid metal to establish an electrical contact between nanostructures and prober. Therefore, a fully automatable robotic probing station inside an SEM will be fabricated. Pick and place procedures with nanometer precision will be used for a new alignment process of the prober by establishing a liquid-solid-liquid interface with the alloy Ga-In-Sn as electrode. This will provide an easy and abrasion-free electrical contact to the device under test. The final part of this project will end in the fabrication of a prototype probe and a customized calibration kit, which exploit the liquid metal for nanometer RF contact probing.Furthermore, liquid metals will be thoroughly examined as functional materials for automated manipulations inside an SEM for electrical and mechanical applications in nanotechnology.