SBIR-STTR Award

As the critical dimensions in transistors shrink, they become increasingly difficult to fabricate. High yield and hence adequate yield analysis define the continued success of the industry, with metrology an essential aspect of yield analysis. Surface metrology needs for current devices are barely being met, particularly in terms of resolution and speed. Piezomax Technologies, Inc. proposes to test, in this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project, the feasibility of a unique application of carbon nanotubes as probes in a novel multiple-compliant-probe sensor, a concept on which we have filed a provisional patent application. Combined with our existing high-speed actuation and control systems, the new sensor will allow nanometer-resolution surface metrology at video rates. The properties of a variety of carbon nanolithography, nanomagnetic imaging, and nanomechanical testing are also foreseen.

As the dimensions of integrated circuits shrink, surface and critical-dimension metrology become increasingly difficult. Yet the need for high yield, which defines the continued profitability of the industry, demands tools capable of sufficiently high resolution and speed to meet these metrology needs. The only option is a tool that incorporates the concepts of AFM, but has improved resolution, speed, and reliability. PIEZOMAX Technologies, Inc. proposes to develop a prototype module ("sensor head") for surface profilometry/CD metrology/AFM that provides high resolution without degradation, that can profile deep features, and that can be operated at speeds beyond those that are today possible, through the combination of advanced resonators with carbon nanotubes as probes. This sensor head, a self-contained unit, can be readily integrated into exiting surface profiling instruments.

Keywords:
Carbon Nanotubes; Scanning Nanoprobe; Ultra-High Resolution; Microscopy; Nanometrology