High aspect ratio topography reconstruction in sub-resonant atomic force microscopy exploiting stick-slip dynamics
conference paper
Sub-resonant tapping atomic force microscopy enables topography measurements with limited lateral tipsample forces, while overcoming the limitations of excessive damage and measurement errors that occur during amplitude modulated operation on high aspect ratio samples. Therefore, it is a candidate to enable process quality monitoring in semiconductor device fabrication. However, at steep edges of such device geometries, the technique often results in stick-slip events for the probe, preventing the desired quasi-static motion of the cantilever and causing errors in the measured topography. To understand the stick-slip dynamics, a model is presented in this article that accurately predicts the consequences of stick-slip episodes. Employing this model, a time-domain based reconstruction technique is proposed to obtain an enhanced topography image. The proposed technique has been tested on a commercially available atomic force microscope with high aspect ratio tip probe and is shown to allow extraction of the topography of a grating sample with overhang features. Comparison of this technique with a conventional AFM method shows improved profile accuracy.
TNO Identifier
877956
Publisher
IEEE
Source title
MARSS, the Annual International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales, 13-17 July 2020, Toronto, ON, Canada
Collation
6 p.
Place of publication
Piscataway, NJ, USA
Files
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