Feasibility to Measure Sidewall Structures of Electronic Device Pattern Using the Inclination AFM

We studied an imaging method for side wall surface of high aspect ratio structure in semiconductor devices by atomic force microscope (AFM). This method is based on conventional AFM methods (for example, contact mode AFM, non-contact mode AFM, tapping mode AFM, and so on) and is equipped with sample inclination mechanism using new XYZ scanner. As experimental results, we demonstrated that the inclination AFM method is very suitable to get detailed structure such as etching scratches on side walls with nanometer resolution.