Surface potential and electric field mapping of p-well/n-well junction by secondary electron potential contrast and in-situ nanoprobe biasing

This study investigates the p-well/n-well junction by using secondary electron potential contrast (SEPC) with in-situ nanoprobe biasing. Experimental result demonstrated dopant contrast is restored after applying electricity in the junction nodes. Furthermore, the image contrast was converted to a voltage scale, allowing the junction surface potential and electric filed distribution to be identified. The proposed method demonstrates that an in-situ nanoprobe system is powerful in dopant area inspection in SEM, potentially contributing to an efficient method in analyzing site-specific failure in real circuits.