Critical-Dimension Grazing-Incidence Small Angle X-Ray Scattering: Applications using Soft, Tender and Hard X-Rays*

As the lithographically manufactured nanostructures are shrinking in size, conventional techniques, such as microscopies (SEM, AFM) reach their resolution limits. We have developed a high performance Grazing Incidence SAXS simulation tool to reconstruct the in-depth profile highly ordered material such as line gratings [1].
Here, we will present the latest development and applications of the technique using hard x-rays on line gratings and contact holes. Moreover, the CD-GISAXS approach was extended to study line edge roughness, latent images [2] and lamellae structure of diblock copolymers, taking advantage of the full energy range provided at the advanced light source and more specifically of the chemical sensitivity provided by soft and tender x-rays scattering.

[1] G. Freychet et al. “Critical-dimension grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering,” Proc. SPIE 10585, 2018.
[2] G. Freychet et al. “Using resonant soft x-ray scattering to image patterns on undeveloped resists,” Proc. SPIE 10809, 2018.