Size and shape control of sub-20 nm patterns fabricated using focused electron beam-induced processing

In a first study to analyze the feasibility of electron beam-induced deposition (EBID) for creating certain patterns in advanced lithography, line patterns were fabricated on silicon wafers using EBID. The growth conditions were such that the growth rate is fully determined by the electron flux (the current limited growth regime). It is...

Determination of line edge roughness in low-dose top-down scanning electron microscopy images

We investigated the off-line metrology for line edge roughness (LER) determination by using the discrete power spectral density (PSD). The study specifically addresses low-dose scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images in order to reduce the acquisition time and the risk of resist shrinkage. The first attempts are based on optimized elliptic...

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...