Adsorption effects on ESR and conductance of rf sputtered a-Si films: M. Suzuki, T. Maekawa, A. Nakao, M. Kumeda and T. Shimizu. Solid St. Commun.36, 393 (1980)

Abstract

A formalism is presented for extracting diffusion coefficients from concentration profiles measured by analytical techniques such as Auger electron spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, low energy and high energy ion scattering. The formalism is based on the measurement of the concentration profile or gradient (dC/dx) at the interface before and after diffusion, and corrects for extraneous effects in the profile due to sputtering artifacts, initial diffusion, and interface and surface roughness. The formalism is shown to be quite insensitive to surface depletion caused by preferential sputtering. The process of correction involves a deconvolution which is valid for all compositions if the above effects can be represented by complementary error functions, as judged by the linearity on a “probability” plot of C versus x where C is concentration and x is distance in angstroms. The formalism is expressed in the form of a nomograph for the routine determination of diffusion coefficients from measured profiles. Examples of its use are given for profiles measured on the Ti-Pd, Ti-Au, Pd-Au, and Cu-Au thin film systems.