Scanning capacitance microscopy measurements using diamond-coated probes

Abstract

Diamond-coated cantilevers have been used for scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM) as an alternative for metal-coated cantilevers in order to improve the stability of probes. It is shown that the diamond-coated probes produce adequate intensity of dC signal and high contrast for both p-type and n-type silicon samples and also provide superior endurance characteristics to metal-coated probes. Due to the robustness of the diamond-coated probes, we are able to evaluate the reproducibility of measurements and the homogeneity of the ultrathin oxide for both dry oxidation (heated up to 300 °C in air under ultraviolet illumination) and wet oxidation (immersed into a hydrogen peroxide solution at 70 °C). The dry oxidation shows better reproducibility, while the wet oxidation shows better homogeneity. Finally, comparison of SCM with secondary ion mass spectrometry measurement shows that diamond-coated probes can be used at least for one-dimensional quantitative SCM measurements without any significant effect of depletion in the diamond-coated tip itself.