Measurement of the transmission secondary electron yield of nanometer-thick films in a prototype Timed Photon Counter

TL;DR

This paper reports the measurement of transmission secondary electron yield of nanometer-thick Al₂O₃/TiN/Al₂O₃ films using a prototype Timed Photon Counter, demonstrating its effectiveness for thin film characterization.

Contribution

It introduces a method to measure transmission secondary electron yield with a prototype TiPC and validates its accuracy against independent data.

Findings

Yield ranges from 0.1 to 0.9 between 1.2 and 1.8 keV

Prototype TiPC effectively characterizes thin film yields

Results agree with independent measurement methods

Abstract

We measure the transmission secondary electron yield of nanometer-thick Al$_2$O$_3$/TiN/Al$_2$O$_3$ films using a prototype version of a Timed Photon Counter (TiPC). We discuss the method to measure the yield extensively. The yield is then measured as a function of landing energy between $1.2$ and $1.8$ keV and found to be in the range of $0.1$ ($1.2$ keV) to $0.9$ ($1.8$ keV). These results are in agreement to data obtained by a different, independent method. We therefore conclude that the prototype TiPC is able to characterise the thin films in terms of transmission secondary electron yield. Additionally, observed features which are unrelated to the yield determination are interpreted.