A semi-analytical approach for the characterization of ordered 3D nano structures using grazing-incidence X-ray fluorescence

TL;DR

This paper introduces a semi-analytical computational method based on dynamical diffraction theory to simulate and analyze grazing-incidence X-ray fluorescence data for characterizing complex 3D nanoscale structures.

Contribution

It presents a new semi-analytical approach for simulating GIXRF intensities, enabling accurate reconstruction of 3D nanostructure parameters from experimental data.

Findings

Accurately reconstructed dimensions of 2D Si3N4 gratings.

Validated method against finite element simulations.

Achieved good agreement with manufacturing parameters.

Abstract

Following the recent demonstration of grazing-incidence X-ray fluorescence (GIXRF) based characterization of the 3D atomic distribution of different elements and dimensional parameters of periodic nanoscale structures, this work presents a new computational scheme for the simulation of the angular dependent fluorescence intensities from such periodic 2D and 3D nanoscale structures. The computational scheme is based on the dynamical diffraction theory in many-beam approximation, which allows to derive a semi-analytical solution to the Sherman equation in a linear-algebraic form. The computational scheme has been used to analyze recently published GIXRF data measured on 2D Si3N4 lamellar gratings, as well as on periodically structured 3D Cr nano pillars. Both the dimensional and structural parameters of these nanostructures have been reconstructed by fitting numeric simulations to the experimental GIXRF data. Obtained results show good agreement with nominal parameters used in the manufacturing of the structures, as well as with reconstructed parameters based on the previously published finite element method simulations, in case of the Si3N4 grating.