Practical application of 2D dopant profiling by LV-SEM

Recently, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has attracted much attention as a potential technique for quick and easy 2D dopant profiling in semiconductor devices. Dopant contrasts in SEM can be achieved at a low accelerating voltage range, which is called the LV-SEM technique. In this study, we have optimized the key parameters influencing dopant contrasts and evaluated the reliability of LV-SEM through comparison with secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) in the multi-layered p-n junction specimen. The results obtained by LV-SEM were in very good agreement with those of other dopant profiling technique. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that the 2D dopant profiling by LV-SEM is available to real semiconductor devices such as MOSFETs, solar cells, power devices, etc.