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Title: Characterization of the shape and line-edge roughness of polymer gratings with grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering and atomic force microscopy

Journal Article · · Journal of Applied Crystallography (Online)
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  2. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
  3. IMEC, Leuven (Belgium)
  4. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) is increasingly used for the metrology of substrate-supported nanoscale features and nanostructured films. In the case of line gratings, where long objects are arranged with a nanoscale periodicity perpendicular to the beam, a series of characteristic spots of high-intensity (grating truncation rods, GTRs) are recorded on a two-dimensional detector. The intensity of the GTRs is modulated by the three-dimensional shape and arrangement of the lines. Previous studies aimed to extract an average cross-sectional profile of the gratings, attributing intensity loss at GTRs to sample imperfections. Such imperfections are just as important as the average shape when employing soft polymer gratings which display significant line-edge roughness. Herein are reported a series of GISAXS measurements of polymer line gratings over a range of incident angles. Both an average shape and fluctuations contributing to the intensity in between the GTRs are extracted. Lastly, the results are critically compared with atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements, and it is found that the two methods are in good agreement if appropriate corrections for scattering from the substrate (GISAXS) and contributions from the probe shape (AFM) are accounted for.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences and Engineering Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1267149
Journal Information:
Journal of Applied Crystallography (Online), Vol. 49, Issue 3; ISSN 1600-5767
Publisher:
International Union of CrystallographyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 21 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (13)

Estimation of Line Cross Sections Using Critical-Dimension Grazing-Incidence Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering journal October 2019
X-ray characterization of contact holes for block copolymer lithography journal February 2019
Distortion analysis of crystalline and locally quasicrystalline 2D photonic structures with grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering journal March 2019
Grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) on small periodic targets using large beams journal May 2017
Extracting dimensional parameters of gratings produced with self-aligned multiple patterning using grazing-incidence small-angle x-ray scattering journal January 2020
Applicability of the Debye-Waller damping factor for the determination of the line-edge roughness of lamellar gratings journal January 2019
Self-assembly morphology of block copolymers in sub-10 nm topographical guiding patterns text January 2019
Self-assembly morphology of block copolymers in sub-10 nm topographical guiding patterns journal January 2019
Distortion analysis of crystalline and locally quasicrystalline 2D photonic structures with grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering text January 2019
X-ray characterization of contact holes for block copolymer lithography text January 2019
Distortion analysis of crystalline and locally quasicrystalline 2D photonic structures with grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering text January 2019
Grazing Incidence Small Angle X-Ray Scattering (GISAXS) on Small Targets Using Large Beams text January 2017
Applicability of the Debye-Waller damping factor for the determination of the line-edge roughness of lamellar gratings text January 2019

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Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering
GISAXS
polymer gratings
line-edge roughness
grating truncation rods