Observation of ultralow-level Al impurities on a silicon surface by high-resolution grazing emission x-ray fluorescence excited by synchrotron radiation

Abstract

We demonstrate that ultralow-level Al impurities on a silicon surface can be measured by using the high-resolution grazing emission x-ray fluorescence (GEXRF) technique combined with synchrotron-radiation excitation. An Al-impurity level of about ${10}^{12}\text{ }\text{atoms}/{\text{cm}}^{2}$ was reached by observing the $\text{Al}\text{ }K\ensuremath{\alpha}$ x-ray fluorescence in the resonant Raman-scattering background-``free'' regime by choosing an appropriate beam energy below the $\text{Si}\text{ }K$ absorption edge. Present results show that by combining the GEXRF method with the vapor phase decomposition technique the ${10}^{7}\text{ }\text{atoms}/{\text{cm}}^{2}$ level can be reached for Al detection on silicon. Finally, we found that the high-resolution GEXRF technique is a sensitive tool to study the morphology of surface nanostructures.