Applications

In TEM a very thin specimen is transmitted by highly accelerated electrons focused to a beam comparable to the optical path of a light microscope. Due to very low wavelength of the electron wave, a very high lateral resolution of better then a few 0.1nm can be achieved. For imaging of the specimen, different contrast mechanisms, such as absorption contrast, scattering contrast and diffraction contrast may be used. Therefore, materials with a different mass density, crystal structure or orientation are easily distinguished. It is also possible to image crystal defects, such as dislocations due to the existing strain fields. Additionally, inelastic scattering effects allow for elemental mapping
Our activities are focused – but not restricted to - on the investigation of ultra thin layers and structures used in semiconductor devices, e.g. geometric characterization of arbitrarily shaped structures including imaging of lattice planes and the physical failure analysis of a certain device according to a given floor plan (target preparation). The samples are usually prepared using . A typical lift-out lamella has a thickness of less than 100nm.

Technical Specifications

• FEI Tecnai F20
• Field emission gun (FEG) with max. 200 KV acceleration voltage
• Scanning TEM unit with HAADF detector
• EDAX detector for energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX)
• Gatan Trident GIF for electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) & energy filtered imaging (EFTEM)
• 2x 2k CCD camera: 0.21nm resolution   

Research Areas

• Physical failure analysis of semiconductor devices 
• Geometrical characterization of layer stacks 
• Characterization of interfaces and crystal defects 
• Phase analysis 
• Material analysis (see EDX & EELS)