An Efficient, Simple, And Precise Way To Map Strain With Nanometer Resolution In Semiconductor Devices

We report on the development of the dark-field inline electron holography technique and its application to map strain in technologically relevant structures, using as an example the strain-engineered gate channel in a 45 nm metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor structure. We show that this technique combines a large field of view of several micrometers with high precision (better than 0.01%), high spatial resolution (better than 1 nm), and very loose experimental requirements not possible with any other technique currently available.