Advanced Scanning Tunneling Microscopy for Nanoscale Analysis of Semiconductor Devices

Significant attention has been addressed to high-spatial resolution analysis of modern sub-100-nm electronic devices to achieve new functions and energy-efficient operations. The chapter presents a review of ongoing research on charge carrier distribution analysis in nanoscale Si devices by using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) employing advanced operation modes: a gap-modulation method, a molecule-assisted probing method, and a dual-imaging method. The described methods rely on detection and analysis of tunneling current, which is strongly localized within an atomic dimension. Representative examples of applications to nanoscale analysis of Si device cross-sections and nanowires are given. Advantages, difficulties, and limitations of the advanced STM methods are discussed in comparison with other techniques used in a field of device metrology

Local magnetization of GeTe/Sb2Te3 superlattice films using a scanning probe microscope

Local magnetization of chalcogenide superlattices (SL) of [(GeTe)2 (Sb2Te3)]n (n=4 and 8) was performed using a magnetic force microscopy (MFM) at room temperature. We show that stripe patterns appeared in MFM phase images after magnetizing of the SL by holding the MFM probe at a short distance to the SL surface at room temperature. The probe-induced stripe pattern remained after storage for several days, and which differs from electric poling. We attributed the SL magnetization to the imbalance in the amount of spin-up and spin-down carriers in helical interface bands under the stray magnetic field

A two-step process for growth of highly oriented Sb2Te3 using sputtering

A two-step growth method is proposed for the fabrication of highly-oriented Sb2Te3 and related superlattice films using sputtering. We report that the quality and grain size of Sb2Te3 as well as GeTe/Sb2Te3 superlattice films strongly depend on the thickness of the room-temperature deposited and subsequently by annealing at 523 K Sb2Te3 seed layer. This result may open up new possibilities for the fabrication of two-dimensional electronic devices using layered chalcogenides