Neutron Reflectivity for Interfacial Materials Characterization

Published

October 16, 2008

Author(s)

Eric K. Lin, D J. Pochan, R Kolb, Wen-Li Wu, Sushil K. Satija

Abstract

Measurements of the physical properties of materials, such as the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), in thin films and at interfaces are very important in microelectronics packaging and interconnection, especially as electronic devices decrease in size and interfaces become a larger proportion of the device. Neutron reflectometry is a powerful experimental tool for the measurement of interfacial properties (1). Neutron reflectometry is a non-destructive measurement technique able to measure interfacial profiles and thin film thicknesses with very high resolution ([approximately]0.1 nm). The use of neutrons provides a unique capability of selectively labeling a material component by deuteration. Thus, high contrast to neutrons can be generated between almost chemically identical species. With the increase in organic material components in electronic packaging and interlayer dielectrics, neutron reflectometry with selective deuteration is an ideal technique to study the properties of these materials at the interfaces.To demonstrate the advantages of using neutron reflectometry, we present two examples of how neutron reflectometry can be used to study important issues in electronics packaging: a) the measurement of the mobility of polymer chains near a solid substrate and b) the measurement of the thermal expansion of confined polymer films.

Citation

International Conference on Characterization and Metrology for ULSI Technology

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

adhesion kinetics, buried interfaces, glass transition temperature, interfacial characterization, neutron reflectometry, polymer diffusion, polymer thin films, thermal expansion

Citation

Lin, E. , Pochan, D. , Kolb, R. , Wu, W. and Satija, S. (2008), Neutron Reflectivity for Interfacial Materials Characterization, International Conference on Characterization and Metrology for ULSI Technology (Accessed October 1, 2025)