Abstract
The main objectives of this work are the development of fundamental extensions to existing scanning microwave microscopy (SMM) technology to achieve quantitative complex impedance measurements at the nanoscale. We developed a SMM operating up to 67 GHz inside a scanning electron microscope, providing unique advantages to tackle issues commonly found in open-air SMMs. Operating in the millimeter-wave frequency range induces high collimation of the evanescent electrical fields in the vicinity of the probe apex, resulting in high spatial resolution and enhanced sensitivity. Operating in a vacuum allows for eliminating the water meniscus on the tip apex, which remains a critical issue to address modeling and quantitative analysis at the nanoscale. In addition, a microstrip probing structure was developed to ensure a transverse electromagnetic mode as close as possible to the tip apex, drastically reducing radiation effects and parasitic apex-to-ground capacitances with available SMM probes. As a demonstration, we describe a standard operating procedure for instrumentation configuration, measurements and data analysis. Measurement performance is exemplarily shown on a staircase microcapacitor sample at 30 GHz.
Highlights
Microwave characterization methods and related instrumentations have been widely described in the literature
We developed a scanning microwave microscopy (SMM) operating inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM)
The measurements are performed at 30 GHz using a modified 25PT300A atomic force microscope (AFM) tip from Rocky Mountain Nanotechnology®
Summary
Microwave characterization methods and related instrumentations have been widely described in the literature. We find broadband techniques, including free-space [1,2,3], guided (including on-wafer) [4] and open-ended coaxial probing [5,6,7] methods, which have the ability to characterize materials with medium to high loss on a broad frequency range. We find narrowband techniques mostly based on resonant structures to achieve accurate measurements of the dielectric properties of low-loss materials [8]. All of these techniques require a sample volume at least in the order of the fraction of the free-space wavelength of excitation
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