Understanding the influence of 3D sidewall roughness on observed line-edge roughness in scanning electron microscopy images

Line-edge roughness (LER) is often measured from top-down critical dimension scanning electron microscope (CD-SEM) images. The true three-dimensional roughness profile of the sidewall is typically ignored in such analyses. We study the response of a CD-SEM to sidewall roughness (SWR) by simulation. We generate random rough lines and spaces,...

Sensitivity of secondary electron yields and SEM images to scattering parameters in MC simulations

In the simulation of secondary electron yields (SEY) and secondary electron microscopy (SEM) images, there is always the question: are we using the correct scattering cross-sections?. The three scattering processes of interest are quasi-elastic phonon scattering, elastic Mott scattering and inelastic scattering using the dielectric function...