Imago Scientific Instruments Ships Atom Probe Microscopes
Staff -- Semiconductor International, 1/24/2008
Imago Scientific Instruments Corp. (Madison, Wis.) said it has shipped two atom probe microscopes to European customers, including one to the Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT, Dresden, Germany) and another to the Montanuniversität Leoben (Leoben, Austria).
The Fraunhofer CNT is a private-public partnership that includes Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Qimonda Dresden, and the Fraunhofer Institute’s Dresden center. It received Imago’s Leap 3000X Si atom probe microscope, which will be used to analyze the 3-D atomic scale structures of semiconductor devices. The microscope can image the position of dopants and the stochiometry of high-k interfaces, for example.
| A 3-D reconstruction shows arsenic dopants (purple) in polysilicon. |
The Leoben university has acquired a local electrode atom probe, the Leap 3000X HR. The university’s department of physical metallurgy and materials testing has established a center of excellence in atom probe tomography. Leoben's research focuses on the development of high-performance metal alloy materials. The atom probe microscopes are used to study the thermo-physical and mechanical properties of the materials.
“Seeing materials in three dimensions at the atomic scale is critical to nanoscience,” said Harald Leitner, principal investigator at the university, which purchased its initial microscope from Imago in 2006. “With the Leap microscopes, we can analyze structures down to the atomic scale and produce invaluable three-dimensional compositional information not possible with any other technique."
Leitner said the university requires an instrument with a large field of view, combined with a high mass resolution required for trace element analyses. He said the new atom probe microscope offers laser-pulsing capability that enables the study of semiconductors and insulators, as well as conductive metal alloy materials.
The Leap 3000X HR, announced in August 2007, is used in voltage-pulse mode for analysis of individual atoms. It complements the Leap 3000 Si product family, targeted at semiconductor and microelectronics applications.
