Abstract
Laser pulsed atom probe tomography (APT) is used to quantitatively analyze oxides of interest to enable the timely the development of high-k gate dielectric films. Specific analysis of hafnium dioxide films, provided by IBM and characterized using the local electrode atom probe (LEAP®), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) are compared and contrasted. A variety of LEAP tomography data analysis techniques will be discussed, including thickness measurements, surface definitions, and buried interface surface roughness calculations based on iso- chemical concentration surfaces. This work demonstrates the ability of the LEAP technique to rapidly and accurately characterize the complex composition and structure of novel high performance semiconductor devices with sub-nanometer resolution. The compositional and spatial information is used to quantify the differences which subtle surface preparation changes have upon the interfacial region for a high-k gate dielectric film.