Reliability of multiresolution deconvolution for improving depth resolution in SIMS analysis

Abstract

This paper deals the effectiveness and reliability of multiresolution deconvolution algorithm for recovery Secondary Ions Mass Spectrometry, SIMS, profiles altered by the measurement. This new algorithm is characterized as a regularized wavelet transform. It combines ideas from Tikhonov Miller regularization, wavelet analysis and deconvolution algorithms in order to benefit from the advantages of each. The SIMS profiles were obtained by analysis of two structures of boron in a silicon matrix using a Cameca-Ims6f instrument at oblique incidence. The first structure is large consisting of two distant wide boxes and the second one is thin structure containing ten delta-layers in which the deconvolution by zone was applied. It is shown that this new multiresolution algorithm gives best results. In particular, local application of the regularization parameter of blurred and estimated solutions at each resolution level provided to smoothed signals without creating artifacts related to noise content in the profile. This led to a significant improvement in the depth resolution and peaks’ maximums.