APL Materials (May 2018)

Anisotropic stress in narrow sGe fin field-effect transistor channels measured using nano-focused Raman spectroscopy

  • T. Nuytten,
  • J. Bogdanowicz,
  • L. Witters,
  • G. Eneman,
  • T. Hantschel,
  • A. Schulze,
  • P. Favia,
  • H. Bender,
  • I. De Wolf,
  • W. Vandervorst

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4999277
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 5
pp. 058501 – 058501-6

Abstract

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The continued importance of strain engineering in semiconductor technology demands fast and reliable stress metrology that is non-destructive and process line-compatible. Raman spectroscopy meets these requirements but the diffraction limit prevents its application in current and future technology nodes. We show that nano-focused Raman scattering overcomes these limitations and can be combined with oil-immersion to obtain quantitative anisotropic stress measurements. We demonstrate accurate stress characterization in strained Ge fin field-effect transistor channels without sample preparation or advanced microscopy. The detailed analysis of the enhanced Raman response from a periodic array of 20 nm-wide Ge fins provides direct access to the stress levels inside the nanoscale channel, and the results are validated using nano-beam diffraction measurements.