Measurement of subsurface damage in silicon wafers

Abstract

This article presents new experimental results on the measurement of surface and subsurface damage with a focus on the residual stress state of machined silicon single crystals. The x-ray diffraction technique is widely applied as a nondestructive method to determine residual stresses from the lattice deformations of the crystal. To obtain a higher resolution of x-ray diffraction, a modified diffractometer with a multicrystal monochromator was used. An optical technique that is useful for the measurement of stress-depth profiles is micro-Raman spectroscopy. With the low penetration depth of the laser, light stresses close to the surface were detected quantitatively.