Silicon Heteroepitaxial Layer Characterization by Atomic Force Microscopy

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been used to investigate the surface morphology of strained heteroepitaxial films of SiGe, SiGeC and strained-Si on Si. AFM topographic data, over different areas have been quantitatively analyzed and compared, using standard roughness descriptors such as the root mean square (RMS) of the surface height deviations. In addition, for a more general and complete description of surface roughness, Fourier transform analysis has been used to determine characteristic parameter values that fully describe the surface roughness independent of the feature size.

Indexing terms:

• Atomic force microscopy
• Strained layer growth
• Surface roughness
• SiGe
• SiGeC
• Strained-Si

Additional information

Notes on contributors

S. Chatterjee

S Chatterjee did PhD from IIT Kharagpur, India, 2004, associated with Texas A&M University, USA for 3 years as a Post-doctoral research associate, after that joined VIT University, India as an Assistant Professor. Research work is focused on finding suitable materials for gate dielectrics and gate electrodes with Si-heterostructure substrates of advanced CMOS devices which will be required for 45 nm technology node (year 2010) in advanced microprocessors and DRAM applications, in this process contributed more than 70 journals/proceedings in the field of Nanoelectronics.