We look for a quantitative technic for the characterization of the atomic% of oxygen present in a SiPOS layer. Furthermore, the SiPOS layer has a thickness of about 1µm and we are interested in measuring this O at% all along the layer thickness. The layer is obtained by LPCVD.
Choosing of the best technique will be dependent on experiment details (e.g. desired content accuracy, desired depth resolution, availability of standards, etc…) and finaly also on experience with analysis of particular material.
Generally, You can obtain depth resolution by performing destructive or non-destructive analysis. Destructive analysis will contain ion bombard (which is inherent to particular technique or which can be added to some ”standard” technique of elementary analysis), while non-destructive analysis can be performed via angle dependent measurements - however the accuracy/resolution will be worse.
You can choose from several groups of techniques, as follows:
i) ion-based methods
Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS)
Secondary Neutral Mass Spectroscopy (SNMS)
Rutherford Back Scattering (RBS)
ii) optical based methods
Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GD-OES)
Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)
iii) methods of surface analysis (with additional ion gun to obtain depth resolution)
X-Ray (UV) Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS, UPS)
Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES)
iv) other methods
…
From the mentioned techniques, I think best choice will be third group (which is also relatively common) followed by SIMS and may be GD-OES. Other techniques I expect to be less accurate or rare. However, as I wrote, it depends on details of analysis, possible interference of signals, etc.
One routinely used method for this type of problem is XPS with sputter profiling. You will get a depth profile of the at% O. Add EDXA to this as a way to get an overall composition throughout the depth.
I would not recommend AES for the materials you have, UPS is not an elemental composition method, and SIMS will take forever to do the work (and be far too complicated in results). I cannot speak for specific optical methods, although I would caution that you calculate composition as secondary information based on a model of composition optical properties. Scattering methods (RBS) have a similar problem.
There are several methods
1-optical based methods
Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GD-OES)
Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)
2- methods of surface analysis (with additional ion gun to obtain depth resolution)
X-Ray (UV) Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS, UPS)
Auger Electron Spectroscopy (AES)
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