BACKSCATTERED ELECTRON CONTRAST ON CROSS-SECTIONS OF INTERFACES AND MULTILAYERS IN THE SCANNING ELECTRON-MICROSCOPE

Backscattered electron (BSE) profiles from single interfaces in bulk cross-section semiconductor specimens are distorted by a 'dip' and 'bump' effect. A deconvolution/convolution method was recently developed [Konkol et al., Ultramicroscopy 55 (1994) 183] to eliminate these distortions, improve the resolution and produce 'correct' composition profiles. This method is now applied to multilayer specimens and the results show how the recently reported high lateral resolutions and anomalously high layer contrast arise and a physical interpretation is given to explain these behaviours. The findings suggest that the deconvolution/convolution method could be used to obtain composition profiles from multilayer BSE profiles, enabling the resolution to be further improved and the layer compositions to be determined