Structural study of a low dielectric thin film using X-ray reflectivity and grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering

Abstract

We have studied the structure of a high-porous silica thin film with pore sizes in nanometer scale using X-ray reflectivity and small angle X-ray scattering in grazing incidence geometry. The reflectivity data provide the information of surface and interface characteristics, density–depth profile, and porosity of the xerogel film. Whereas the grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering results reveal the internal structure of the porous film, including pore shape and size, and averaged inter-pore spacing. It is demonstrated that the combination of these two techniques is a powerful structural characterization tool to porous thin films.