A Novel Micro-Structured Reference Material for Ion and X-Ray Microbeam Analysis

Abstract.

 In order to determine the beam spot size and the linear or raster scanning properties of microprobe analytical systems, a novel reference material has been developed by IRMM, consisting of permalloy (81% Ni, 19% Fe) strip patterns of different widths on a silicon substrate. The general layout of this micro-structured reference material with pattern sizes ranging from 2 to 100 μm, fabricated with production schemes of microelectronics circuitry on silicon wafers, is discussed. The large size range of the individual pattern structures makes the material equally applicable to very fine and less focused microbeams. Due to the choice of substrate and pattern materials, these samples exhibit a high elemental contrast suitable for analysis with X-ray and electron detection and with ion scattering techniques. First chips of this material were investigated with both X-ray tube based as well as synchrotron radiation based X-ray microprobes with capillary optics. Due to the very good definition of the metal lines and their edge profiles (0.5 μm high, shape irregularities and undulations < 0.1 μm) line scan results of for example XRF can be directly converted to spot size and microbeam profile.