CD-SAXS

Critical-Dimension Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (CD-SAXS) is an x-ray scattering technique that can be used to reconstruct the in-plane and out-of-plane structure of nanostructured thin-films. The technique consists of collecting a series of transmission SAXS images, at a variety of sample rotation angles. These $\scriptstyle (q_{x},q_{y})$ images can be combined to reconstruct the 3D reciprocal-space, in particular probing the $\scriptstyle (q_{y},q_{z})$ slice that contains both in-plane and out-of-plane (film normal direction) information.

The technique derives its name from CD-SEM, a realspace microscopy used measure the 'critical dimensions' of a structure. CD-SAXS can also be called rotational-SAXS (RSAXS); indeed the neutron variant is typically called RSANS. It is closely related to a variety of other scattering/diffraction techniques that involve rotating the sample in order to reconstruct reciprocal-space (c.f. pole figures).

CD-SEM is frequently used in the lithography and nanofabrication industry as a metrology for the quality of fabrication process. Similarly, CD-SAXS is ideally suited to quantifying the average structure of well-defined entities such as lithographic line-gratings. Indeed, CD-SAXS can reliably probe a grating's repeat period, height, and sidewall angle (or, more generally, the grating's cross-sectional profile). In principle, this technique can quantify aspects of defects and disorder (e.g. line-edge roughness, LER).

References

Gratings

• Wen-li Wu, Eric K. Lin, Qinghuang Lin and Marie Angelopolous Small angle neutron scattering measurements of nanoscale lithographic features Journal of Applied Physics 2000, 88, 7298 doi: 10.1063/1.1324688
• Ronald L. Jones, Tengjiao Hu, Eric K. Lin, Wen-Li Wu, Rainer Kolb, Diego M. Casa, Patrick J. Bolton and George G. Barclay Small angle x-ray scattering for sub-100 nm pattern characterization Applied Physics Letters 2003, 83, 4059 doi: 10.1063/1.1622793
• Ronald L. Jones ; Tengjiao Hu ; Christopher L. Soles ; Eric K. Lin ; Wen-li Wu ; Diego M. Casa ; Arpan Mahorowala Preliminary evaluation of line-edge roughness metrology based on CD-SAXS Proc. SPIE 5375, Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XVIII 2004, 191 doi: 10.1117/12.535693
• Tengjiao Hu, Ronald L. Jones, Wen-li Wu, Eric K. Lin, Qinghuang Lin, Denis Keane, Steve Weigand and John Quintana Small angle x-ray scattering metrology for sidewall angle and cross section of nanometer scale line gratings Journal of Applied Physics 2004, 96, 1983 doi: 10.1063/1.1773376
• Chengqing Wang, Ronald L. Jones, Eric K. Lin, Wen-Li Wu, Bryan J. Rice, Kwang-Woo Choi, George Thompson, Steven J. Weigand and Denis T. Keane Characterization of correlated line edge roughness of nanoscale line gratings using small angle x-ray scattering Journal of Applied Physics 2007, 102, 024901 doi: 10.1063/1.2753588
• Chengqing Wang, Ronald L. Jones, Eric K. Lin, Wen-Li Wu, and Jim Leu Small angle x-ray scattering measurements of lithographic patterns with sidewall roughness from vertical standing waves Applied Physics Letters 2007, 90, 193122 doi: 10.1063/1.2737399

Lithographic structures

• Chengqing Wang ; Ronald L. Jones ; Eric K. Lin ; Wen-li Wu ; John S. Villarrubia ; Kwang-Woo Choi ; James S. Clarke ; Bryan J. Rice ; Michael J. Leeson ; Jeanette Roberts ; Robert Bristol ; Benjamin Bunday Line edge roughness characterization of sub-50nm structures using CD-SAXS: round-robin benchmark results Proc. SPIE 6518, Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XXI 2007, 651810 doi: 10.1117/12.725380
• Chengqing Wang; Kwang-Woo Choi; Wei-En Fu; Derek L. Ho; Ronald L. Jones; Christopher Soles; Eric K. Lin; Wen-Li Wu; James S. Clarke; Benjamin Bunday CD-SAXS measurements using laboratory-based and synchrotron-based instruments Proc. SPIE 6922, Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XXII 2008, 69222E doi: 10.1117/12.773774
• Chengqing Wang ; Kwang-Woo Choi ; Yi-Ching Chen ; Jimmy Price ; Derek L. Ho ; Ronald L. Jones ; Christopher Soles ; Erik K. Lin ; Wen-Li Wu ; Benjamin D. Bunday Nonplanar high-k dielectric thickness measurements using CD-SAXS Proc. SPIE 7272, Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography XXIII 2009, 72722M 10.1117/12.813757
• Charles M. Settens; Aaron Cordes; Benjamin D. Bunday; Abner F. Bello; Vimal K. Kamineni; Abhijeet Paul; Jody Fronheiser; Richard J. Matyi Assessment of critical dimension small-angle x-ray scattering measurement approaches for FinFET fabrication process monitoring Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 2014, 13 (4), 041408 doi: 10.1117/1.JMM.13.4.041408
• D. F. Sunday, S. List, J. S. Chawla and R. J. Kline Determining the shape and periodicity of nanostructures using small-angle X-ray scattering J. Appl. Cryst. 2015, 48. doi: 10.1107/S1600576715013369

Nanoimprinted polymer

• Ronald L. Jones ; Christopher L. Soles ; Eric K. Lin ; Walter Hu ; Ronald M. Reano ; Stella W. Pang ; Steven J. Weigand ; Denis T. Keane ; John P. Quintana Pattern fidelity in nanoimprinted films using critical dimension small angle x-ray scattering Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 2006, 5 (1), 013001 doi: :10.1117/1.2170550

• Ronald L. Jones, Tengjiao Hu, Christopher L. Soles, Eric K. Lin, Ronald M. Reano, Stella W. Pang, and Diego M. Casa Real-Time Shape Evolution of Nanoimprinted Polymer Structures during Thermal Annealing Nano Letters 2006', 6 (8), 1723-1728 doi: 10.1021/nl061086i

Block-copolymer

• Daniel F. Sunday ; Matthew R. Hammond ; Chengqing Wang ; Wen-li Wu ; R. Joseph Kline ; Gila E. Stein Three-dimensional x-ray metrology for block copolymer lithography line-space patterns Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 2013, 12 (3), 031103 doi: 10.1117/1.JMM.12.3.031103
• Daniel F. Sunday, Matthew R. Hammond, Chengqing Wang, Wen-li Wu, Dean M. Delongchamp, Melia Tjio, Joy Y. Cheng, Jed W. Pitera, and R. Joseph Kline Determination of the Internal Morphology of Nanostructures Patterned by Directed Self Assembly ACS Nano 2014, 8 (8), 8426-8437 doi: 10.1021/nn5029289
• Khaira, G., Doxastakis, M., Bowen, A., Ren, J., Suh, H.S., Segal-Peretz, T., Chen, X., Zhou, C., Hannon, A.F., Ferrier, N.J., Vishwanath, V., Sunday, D.F., Gronheid, R., Kline, R.J., de Pablo, J.J., Nealey, P.F., Derivation of Multiple Covarying Material and Process Parameters Using Physics-Based Modeling of X-ray Data Macromolecules 2017, 50, 7783–7793. doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.7b00691

Reviews

• Wen-li Wu et al. Review of the key milestones in the development of critical dimension small angle x-ray scattering at National Institute of Standards and Technology SPIE Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials, and Metrology 2023, Vol. 22, Issue 3, 031206 doi: 10.1117/1.JMM.22.3.031206

See Also

• RSANS
• GISAXS can directly measure the $\scriptstyle (q_{y},q_{z})$ plane in a single image, but introduces a refraction distortion and beam projection.
• GTSAXS can measure the $\scriptstyle (q_{y},q_{z})$ plane in a single image without distortion, but imposes constraints on sample geometry.
• NIST Dimensional Metrology for Nanoscale Patterns
• NIST tutorial video