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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

Abstract

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.

Authors:
 [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)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences and Engineering Division
OSTI Identifier:
1267149
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-06CH11357
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Applied Crystallography (Online)
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Journal of Applied Crystallography (Online); Journal Volume: 49; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 1600-5767
Publisher:
International Union of Crystallography
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering; GISAXS; polymer gratings; line-edge roughness; grating truncation rods

Citation Formats

Suh, Hyo Seon, Chen, Xuanxuan, Rincon-Delgadillo, Paulina A., Jiang, Zhang, Strzalka, Joseph, Wang, Jin, Chen, Wei, Gronheid, Roel, de Pablo, Juan J., Ferrier, Nicola, Doxastakis, Manolis, and Nealey, Paul F.. Characterization of the shape and line-edge roughness of polymer gratings with grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering and atomic force microscopy. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1107/S1600576716004453.
Suh, Hyo Seon, Chen, Xuanxuan, Rincon-Delgadillo, Paulina A., Jiang, Zhang, Strzalka, Joseph, Wang, Jin, Chen, Wei, Gronheid, Roel, de Pablo, Juan J., Ferrier, Nicola, Doxastakis, Manolis, & Nealey, Paul F.. Characterization of the shape and line-edge roughness of polymer gratings with grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering and atomic force microscopy. United States. https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576716004453
Suh, Hyo Seon, Chen, Xuanxuan, Rincon-Delgadillo, Paulina A., Jiang, Zhang, Strzalka, Joseph, Wang, Jin, Chen, Wei, Gronheid, Roel, de Pablo, Juan J., Ferrier, Nicola, Doxastakis, Manolis, and Nealey, Paul F.. Fri . "Characterization of the shape and line-edge roughness of polymer gratings with grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering and atomic force microscopy". United States. https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576716004453. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1267149.
@article{osti_1267149,
title = {Characterization of the shape and line-edge roughness of polymer gratings with grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering and atomic force microscopy},
author = {Suh, Hyo Seon and Chen, Xuanxuan and Rincon-Delgadillo, Paulina A. and Jiang, Zhang and Strzalka, Joseph and Wang, Jin and Chen, Wei and Gronheid, Roel and de Pablo, Juan J. and Ferrier, Nicola and Doxastakis, Manolis and Nealey, Paul F.},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1107/S1600576716004453},
journal = {Journal of Applied Crystallography (Online)},
number = 3,
volume = 49,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Apr 22 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Fri Apr 22 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}

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