A tabletop x-ray tomography instrument for nanometer-scale imaging: demonstration of the 1,000-element transition-edge sensor subarray

Published

August 1, 2023

Author(s)

Paul Szypryt, Nathan J. Nakamura, Dan Becker, Douglas Bennett, Amber L. Dagel, W.Bertrand (Randy) Doriese, Joseph Fowler, Johnathon Gard, J. Zachariah Harris, Gene C. Hilton, Jozsef Imrek, Edward S. Jimenez, Kurt W. Larson, Zachary H. Levine, John Mates, Daniel McArthur, Luis Miaja Avila, Kelsey Morgan, Galen O'Neil, Nathan Ortiz, Christine G. Pappas, Dan Schmidt, Kyle R. Thompson, Joel Ullom, Leila R. Vale, Michael Vissers, Christopher Walker, Joel Weber, Abigail Wessels, Jason W. Wheeler, Daniel Swetz

Abstract

We report on the 1,000-element transition-edge sensor (TES) x-ray spectrometer implementation of the TOMographic Circuit Analysis Tool (TOMCAT). TOMCAT combines a high spatial resolution scanning electron microscope (SEM) with a highly efficient and pixelated TES spectrometer to reconstruct three-dimensional maps of nanoscale integrated circuits (ICs). A 240-pixel prototype spectrometer was recently used to reconstruct ICs at the 130 nm technology node, but to increase imaging speed to more practical levels, the detector efficiency needs to be improved. For this reason, we are building a spectrometer that will eventually contain 3,000 TES microcalorimeters read out with microwave superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) multiplexing, and we currently have commissioned a 1,000 TES subarray. This still represents a significant improvement from the 240-pixel system and allows us to begin characterizing the full spectrometer performance. Of the 992 maximimum available readout channels, we have yielded 818 devices, representing the largest number of TES x-ray microcalorimeters simultaneously read out to date. These microcalorimeters have been optimized for pulse speed rather than purely energy resolution, and we measure a FWHM energy resolution of 14 eV at the 8.0 keV Cu Kα line.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Volume

33

Issue

5

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2023.3256343

Local Download

Keywords

Computed tomography, integrated circuit measurements, scanning electron microscopy, transition-edge sensors

Citation

Szypryt, P. , Nakamura, N. , Becker, D. , Bennett, D. , Dagel, A. , Doriese, W. , Fowler, J. , Gard, J. , Harris, J. , Hilton, G. , Imrek, J. , Jimenez, E. , Larson, K. , Levine, Z. , Mates, J. , McArthur, D. , Miaja Avila, L. , Morgan, K. , O'Neil, G. , Ortiz, N. , Pappas, C. , Schmidt, D. , Thompson, K. , Ullom, J. , Vale, L. , Vissers, M. , Walker, C. , Weber, J. , Wessels, A. , Wheeler, J. and Swetz, D. (2023), A tabletop x-ray tomography instrument for nanometer-scale imaging: demonstration of the 1,000-element transition-edge sensor subarray, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2023.3256343, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935859 (Accessed April 18, 2024)