Si e Si/Ge strain analysis by precesssion electron diffraction (PED)

Vanda GRANATO, LFoundry

Precession Electron Diffraction (PED) is an innovative method for the crystallographic study of materials, but also an efficient technique to measure strain in nanostructures while maintaining a few nanometer size probe.

The PED technique produces electron diffraction intensities patterns that are close to the kinematical one and contains more information about higher order Laue zones (HOLZ) than conventional diffraction patterns.

Diffraction patterns from strained regions are matched against a reference pattern and the results are the strain calculations, in the x and y directions.

In semiconductor and material science, PED represents a reliable and fast technique with high spatial resolution for strain measurement.

We obtained some interesting results about strain measures in Silicon samples with Germanium implanted. The PED analysis confirmed a strain variation along the x direction as already evidenced by the SIMS analysis.

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