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Search Publications by: Ronald G. Dixson (Fed)

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Displaying 51 - 75 of 205

Nano- and Atom-scale Length Metrology

October 1, 2010
Author(s)
Theodore V. Vorburger, Ronald G. Dixson, Ndubuisi G. Orji, Joseph Fu, Richard A. Allen, Michael W. Cresswell, Vincent A. Hackley
Measurements of length at the nano-scale have increasing importance in manufacturing, especially in the electronics and biomedical industries. The properties of linewidth and step height are critical to the function and specification of semiconductor

Interlaboratory Comparison of Traceable Atomic Force Microscope Pitch Measurements

June 14, 2010
Author(s)
Ronald G. Dixson, Donald Chernoff, Shihua Wang, Theodore V. Vorburger, Ndubuisi G. Orji, Siew-Leng Tan, Joseph Fu
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Advanced Surface Microscopy (ASM), and the National Metrology Centre (NMC) of the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore have undertaken a three-way interlaboratory

Calibration of 1 nm SiC Step Height Standards

March 31, 2010
Author(s)
Theodore V. Vorburger, Albert M. Hilton, Ronald G. Dixson, Ndubuisi G. Orji, J. A. Powell, A. J. Trunek, P. G. Neudeck, P. B. Abel
We aim to develop and calibrate a set of step height standards to meet the range of steps useful for nanotechnology. Of particular interest to this community is the calibration of atomic force microscopes operating at their highest levels of magnification

Proximity-associated errors in contour metrology

March 31, 2010
Author(s)
John S. Villarrubia, Ronald G. Dixson, Andras Vladar
In contour metrology the CD-SEM (critical dimension scanning electron microscope) assigns a continuous boundary to extended features in an image. The boundary is typically assigned as a simple function of the signal intensity, for example by a brightness

Traceability: The Key to Nanomanufacturing

December 30, 2009
Author(s)
Ndubuisi George Orji, Ronald G. Dixson, Bryan Barnes, Richard M. Silver
Over the last few years key advances have been made in the area of nanomanufacturing and nanofabrication. Several researchers have produced nanostructures using either top-down or bottom-up techniques, while other groups have functionalized such structures

Results of an international photomask linewidth comparison of NIST and PTB

October 9, 2009
Author(s)
Bernd Bodermann, Detleff Bergmann, Egbert Buhr, Wolfgang Haebler-Grohne, Harald Bosse, James E. Potzick, Ronald G. Dixson, Richard Quintanilha, Michael T. Stocker, Andras Vladar, Ndubuisi George Orji
In preparation of the international Nano1 linewidth comparison on photomasks between 9 national metrology institutes, NIST and PTB have started a bilateral linewidth comparison in 2008, independent of and prior to the Nano1 comparison in order to test the

Measurement Traceability and Quality Assurance in a Nanomanufacturing Environment

September 25, 2009
Author(s)
Ndubuisi G. Orji, Ronald G. Dixson, Aaron Cordes, Benjamin Bunday, John Allgair
A key requirement for nano-manufacturing is maintaining acceptable traceability of measurements performed to determine size. Given that properties and functionality at the nanoscale are governed by absolute size, maintaining the traceability of dimensional

A moving window correlation method to reduce the distortion of SPM images

August 20, 2009
Author(s)
Wei Chu, Joseph Fu, Ronald G. Dixson, Ndubuisi G. Orji, Theodore V. Vorburger
Many scanning probe microscopes (SPMs), such as the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and atomic force microscope (AFM), use piezoelectric actuators operating in open loop for generating the scans of the surfaces. However, nonlinearities mainly caused by

Angle-resolved Optical Metrology using Multi-Technique Nested Uncertainties

August 15, 2009
Author(s)
Richard M. Silver, Bryan M. Barnes, Hui Zhou, Nien F. Zhang, Ronald G. Dixson
This paper introduces recent advances in scatterfield microscopy using improved normalization and fitting procedures. Reduced measurement uncertainties are obtained through the use of more accurate normalization procedures in combination with better

Reference Metrology in a Research Fab: The NIST Clean Calibrations Thrust

April 12, 2009
Author(s)
Ronald G. Dixson, Ndubuisi G. Orji, Joseph Fu, Thomas B. Renegar, Xiaoyu A. Zheng, Theodore V. Vorburger, Albert M. Hilton, Marc J. Cangemi, Lei Chen, Michael A. Hernandez, Russell E. Hajdaj, Michael R. Bishop, Aaron Cordes
In 2004, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) commissioned the Advanced Measurement Laboratory (AML) – a state-of-the-art, five-wing laboratory complex for leading edge NIST research. The NIST NanoFab – a 1765 m2 (19,000 ft2) clean

Comparison of Measurement Techniques for Linewidth Metrology on Advanced Photomasks

February 19, 2009
Author(s)
Stewart Smith, Andreas Tsiamis, Martin McCallum, Andrew Hourd, J Stevenson, Anthony Walton, Ronald G. Dixson, Richard A. Allen, James E. Potzick, Michael W. Cresswell, Ndubuisi George Orji
This paper compares electrical, optical, and atomic force microscope (AFM) measurements of critical dimension (CD)made on a chrome on quartz photomask. Test structures suitable for direct, on-mask electrical probing have been measured using the above three

2nd Annual Tri-National Workshop on Standards for Nanotechnology - (NIST presentations)

December 10, 2008
Author(s)
Ronald G. Dixson, Jon R. Pratt, Vincent A. Hackley, James E. Potzick, Richard A. Allen, Ndubuisi G. Orji, Michael T. Postek, Herbert S. Bennett, Theodore V. Vorburger, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Robert L. Watters
A new era of cooperation between North American National Measurement Institutes (NMIs) was ushered by the National Research Council of Canada Institute for National Measurement Standards (NRC-INMS) on February 7, 2007 when the first Tri-National workshop

International photomask linewidth comparison by NIST and PTB

October 17, 2008
Author(s)
James E. Potzick, Ronald G. Dixson, Richard Quintanilha, Michael T. Stocker, Andras Vladar, Egbert Buhr, Bernd Bodermann, Wolfgang Hassler-Grohne, Harald Bosse, C.G. Frase
In preparation of the international Nano1 linewidth comparison on photomasks between 8 national metrology institutes, NIST and PTB have started a bilateral linewidth comparison in 2008, independent of and prior to the Nano1 comparison in order to test the

Accuracy Considerations for Critical Dimension Semiconductor Metrology

September 9, 2008
Author(s)
Ronald G. Dixson, Ndubuisi G. Orji, B Bunday, J Allgair
As the size of integrated circuit features continues to decrease, the accuracy of measurements becomes more important. Due to greater emphasis on precision rather than accuracy, many of the measurements made in semiconductor fabs are not traceable to the

Through-focus Scanning and Scatterfield Optical Methods for Advanced Overlay Target Analysis

September 1, 2008
Author(s)
Ravikiran Attota, Michael T. Stocker, Richard M. Silver, Nathanael A. Heckert, Hui Zhou, Richard J. Kasica, Lei Chen, Ronald G. Dixson, Ndubuisi G. Orji, Bryan M. Barnes, Peter Lipscomb
In this paper we present overlay measurement techniques that use small overlay targets for advanced semiconductor applications. We employ two different optical methods to measure overlay using modified conventional optical microscope platforms. They are

Towards Accurate Feature Shape Metrology

March 22, 2008
Author(s)
Ndubuisi G. Orji, Ronald G. Dixson, B Bunday, J Allgair
Over the last few years, the need for shape metrology for process control has increased. A key component of shape metrology is sidewall angle (SWA). However, few instruments measure SWA directly. The critical dimension atomic force microscope (CD-AFM) is

Comparison of SEM and HRTEM CD Measurements Extracted from Test-Structures Having Feature Linewidths from 40 nm to 240 nm

January 1, 2008
Author(s)
Michael W. Cresswell, Richard A. Allen, William F. Guthrie, Christine E. Murabito, Ronald G. Dixson, Amy Hunt
CD (Critical Diminsion) measurements have been extracted from SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) and HRTEM (High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy) images of the same set of monocrystalline silicon features having linewidths between 40 nm and 240

Line Width Measurement Technique Using Through-Focus Optical Images

January 1, 2008
Author(s)
Ravikiran Attota, Richard M. Silver, Ronald G. Dixson
We present a detailed experimental study of a new through-focus technique to measure line width (CD) with nanometer sensitivity using a bright field optical microscope. This method relies on analyzing intensity gradients in optical images at different

Nano- and Atomic-Scale Length Metrology

December 14, 2007
Author(s)
Theodore V. Vorburger, Ronald G. Dixson, Joseph Fu, Ndubuisi G. Orji, Shaw C. Feng, Michael W. Cresswell, Richard A. Allen, William F. Guthrie, Wei Chu

Photomask Applications of Traceable Atomic Force Microscope Dimensional Metrology at NIST

October 1, 2007
Author(s)
Ronald G. Dixson, Ndubuisi G. Orji, James E. Potzick, Joseph Fu, Michael W. Cresswell, Richard A. Allen, S J. Smith, Anthony J. Walton
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a multifaceted program in AFM dimensional metrology. Two major instruments are being used for traceable measurements. The first is a custom in-house metrology AFM, called the calibrated AFM (C

CD Reference Materials Fabricated on Monolithic 200 mm Wafers for Automated Metrology Tool Applications

September 30, 2007
Author(s)
Richard A. Allen, Ronald G. Dixson, Michael W. Cresswell, William Gutherie, Byron J. Shulver, Andrew S. Bunting, J. T. Stevenson, Anthony Walton
Recently, prototype isolated-line, single-crystal CD reference materials (SCCDRMs) with linewidths as narrow as 40 nm ? 1.5 nm have been reported. These reference materials, designated NIST Reference Material (RM) 8111 were configured as a 10 mm by 11 mm