GAITHERSBURG, Md., May 13 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they've created a technique that uses long-wave terahertz waves to efficiently measure structural properties used in integrated circuits.
The researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology said their technique is a new approach to measuring key properties of nanoscale metal-oxide films used in high-speed integrated circuits and could become an important quality-control tool to help monitor semiconductor manufacturing processes and evaluate new metal oxide nanofilm insulating materials.
Manufacturers typically assay metal oxide films using X-ray spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy, both time-consuming processes. The NIST researchers said they discovered they could obtain comparable detail about the structural characteristics of the thin films by measuring their absorption of terahertz radiation.
"No one thought nanometer-thick films could be detected at all using terahertz spectroscopy, and I expected that the radiation would pass right through them," said Ted Heilweil, a NIST chemist and co-author of the study. "Contrary to these expectations, the signals we observed were huge."
The study appears in the journal Optics Letters.
