Seeing nanocomponents in a new light

The PFNC can now characterize the chemistry and morphology of nanoelectronic systems to within 2 nm spatial resolution. A team of researchers from Leti, CNRS, and STMicroelectronics has proven the effectiveness of this new characterization technique on a 45-nm transistor.
The researchers combined electron microscopy and atom probe tomography to generate images that turned out to be a goldmine of information. For example, scientists can now characterize boron-doped silicon in 3D with detection thresholds of under 1×10^-18 at/cm³.
The research, which kicked off in January 2013, was conducted under a French National Research Agency “Aptitude” project and also involved Cameca, a scientific instrumentation supplier. The goal was to improve the reconstruction algorithms used on images obtained via atom probe tomography. The next step will be to characterize a 14-nm transistor.
Contact: adeline.grenier@cea.fr

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