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Quantitative Thin-Film X-ray Microanalysis by STEM/HAADF: Statistical Analysis for Precision and Accuracy Determination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2006

Aldo Armigliato ,
Roberto Balboni  and
Rodolfo Rosa
Aldo Armigliato
Affiliation:
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Microelettronica e i Microsistemi (CNR-IMM), Sezione di Bologna, Via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
Roberto Balboni
Affiliation:
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Microelettronica e i Microsistemi (CNR-IMM), Sezione di Bologna, Via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
Rodolfo Rosa
Affiliation:
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Microelettronica e i Microsistemi (CNR-IMM), Sezione di Bologna, Via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche, Università di Bologna, Via delle Belle Arti, 41, 40126 Bologna, Italy
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Abstract

Silicon-germanium thin films have been analyzed by EDS microanalysis in a field emission gun scanning transmission electron microscope (FEG-STEM) equipped with a high angular dark-field detector (STEM/HAADF). Several spectra have been acquired in the same homogeneous area of the cross-sectioned sample by drift-corrected linescan acquisitions. The Ge concentrations and the local film thickness have been obtained by using a previously described Monte Carlo based “two tilt angles” method. Although the concentrations are in excellent agreement with the known values, the resulting confidence intervals are not as good as expected from the precision in beam positioning and tilt angle position and readout offered by our state-of-the-art microscope. The Gaussian shape of the SiKα and GeKα X-ray intensities allows one to use the parametric bootstrap method of statistics, whereby it becomes possible to perform the same quantitative analysis in sample regions of different compositions and thicknesses, but by doing only one measurement at the two angles.

Keywords

analytical electron microscopyMonte Carlo simulationstatistical analysissilicon–germanium alloys
Type
MODERN DEVELOPMENTS AND APPLICATIONS IN MICROBEAM ANALYSIS
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , August 2006 , pp. 318 - 321
Copyright
© 2006 Microscopy Society of America

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References

REFERENCES

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Armigliato, A. & Rosa, R. (1990). Simultaneous determination of composition and thickness of thin films by X-ray microanalysis at 300 kV and Monte Carlo simulation. Ultramicroscopy 32, 127–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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