Film Thickness Measurements Using Optical Techniques

Harland G. Tompkins, Motorola, Inc.

Introduction
MEASURING THE THICKNESS of thin films can be accomplished in many ways, but this article will focus on the optical method of single-wavelength ellipsometry (SWE) and two multiple-wavelength methods of reflectometry and spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). Single-wavelength ellipsometry and reflectometry are relatively inexpensive methods that excel when a single film on a substrate is to be measured. Single-wavelength ellipsometry is particularly effective for films a few nanometers thick to a few hundred nanometers thick, and reflectometry is particularly effective for films thicker than a few hundred nanometers. Spectroscopic ellipsometry is a more expensive and more complex method that can be readily used with multiple films. In this article, the general capabilities and principles of ellipsometry and reflectometry are discussed in terms of nondestructive methods for measuring the thickness of thin films. The film thicknesses to be considered will be from a few. nanometers to a few micrometers. Emphasis is placed on the methods that are available commercially rather than methods that require more specialized development. In their rudimentary form, the initial expenses for purchasing the equipment for SWE and reflectometry are roughly the same. Although SE has been used in research laboratories for over a decade, it has only been used regularly in industry since the early 1990s. The initial cost of SE in its rudimentary form is three or five times that of the other two techniques. Very few users in industry purchase these techniques in their rudimentary form, however, and the additional options can often double or triple the cost. This article does not discuss methods such as optical microscopy of cross-sectioned samples or the shift of interference fringes at a purposely fabricated step. The thickness of a thin evaporated metal on a microscope slide can be determined by measuring the fraction of transmitted light, after suitable calibration. This requires a special substrate, however; it is not an in-line technique and will not be considered here.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge Mark Keefer, Prometrix Corp.; William Henderson, SOPRA, Inc.; and John Woollam, J.A. Woollam Co. for useful discussions. In addition, Tom Wetteroth, Motorola, Inc., was very helpful in reading the manuscript and making numerous useful suggestions. His careful attention to detail is appreciated.

General Background
A basic requirement for using optical methods for determining the thickness of a film is that the light must be able to reach the bottom of the film and interact with the underlying layer. Transparent materials such as most oxides qualify throughout the above-mentioned thickness range up to a few micrometers. Many semiconductors are nearly transparent and also easily qualify. Metals, however, must be very thin for these optical methods to be applicable. The intensity change upon reflection for very thin films is quite small. On the other hand, the phase shift differences are significant. For this reason, ellipsometry is one of the most powerful techniques for very thin films. Other traditional thickness measuring techniques such as stylus profilometry and interferometry are ineffective for films thinner than 50 nm. Electrical phenomena. such as eddy currents are sometimes used for thickness measurements of metal films. These techniques require significantly greater calibration efforts, however, and always depend on assumptions wit regard to microstructure. Ellipsometry and reflectometry basically involve the measurement of changes in phase shift or intensity, respectively, as light reflects from material. Optical properties and film thicknesses of the samples are then calculated based on a chosen model. Regression software is able to determine the thicknesses that give the best fit to within a few angstroms. In many cases, the regression software also gives a "goodness-of-fit" parameter. The "goodness-of-fit" parameter provides a test of the model describing the sample. If the value is outside the acceptable range, then another model may be required. In any event, thickness is not determined directly; the assumption of a model allows calculation of the ellipsometry or reflectometry parameters and subsequent. comparison of calculated values and measured values. Differences between the

results of an analysis and reality are more often due to an oversimplified model than to limitations in the capability of the measuring instrument.

Basic Theory
For general information on electromagnetic waves and optics, the reader should refer to textbooks (Ref 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and reference books (Ref 6) on the subjects. Some of the salient features that are directly applicable to reflectometry and ellipsometry (Ref 7, 8) are reviewed here. The electromagnetic wave is a transverse wave consisting of both an electric field vector and a magnetic field vector that are mutually perpendicular and perpendicular to the propagation direction of the wave. The wave can be specified with either the magnetic field vector or the electric field vector. For simplicity, the electric vector only is considered. The light wave can be represented mathematically as a sine wave with amplitude A. Waves transport energy, and the amount of energy per second that flows across a unit area perpendicular to the direction of travel is called the intensity of the wave and will be denoted as I. The intensity, or energy density (Ref 7), is proportional to the square of the amplitude.
Reflection. For a single film on a substrate (Fig. 1), reflections rather than transmission, are the primary concern. As

shown in Fig. 1, some of the light is reflected and some passes into the material at the air-to-solid interface. At the second interface, again, some is reflected and some is transmitted. The various rays that leave the material from the top surface combine to make the outgoing wave. For reflectometry, the ratio of the intensity of the outgoing wave to the intensity of the incoming wave is measured. Reflectometry measurements are often made at normal (perpendicular) incidence. The various rays give constructive or destructive interference, depending on the wavelength of the light, the thickness of the film, and the optical properties of the various materials. For the reflectometry technique, one measures the reflected intensity versus the wavelength of light to deduce the film thickness.

Fig. 1 Schematic of light reflected and transmitted at film interfaces. The outgoing beam is a combination of all of the rays emerging from film from the top interface. Each material is characterized by the index of refraction N1. The thickness of the film is d. Source: Ref 8

For ellipsometry, the measured parameter is the ratio of the wave amplitude parallel to the plane of incidence versus the wave amplitude perpendicular to the plane of incidence. The reflection process also causes a phase shift between these two waves, and this phase shift is measured during ellipsometry. The amplitude ratios and phase shifts are functions of the wavelength, thickness, optical properties of the various materials, and angle of incidence.
Polarized Light. Most light sources emit unpolarized light, or light with electric-field components oriented in all

possible directions perpendicular to the direction of travel. If all the photons in a light beam have the electric field oriented in one direction, the light is referred to as polarized light or, more completely, linearly polarized light. Some light sources emit polarized light. In addition, one can obtain polarized light by passing the light beam through an optical element or by causing the beam to make a reflection under some specific conditions. Figure 2(a) illustrates two light beams with the same frequency moving along the same path, one polarized in the vertical plane and the other polarized perpendicular to the vertical plane. In this case, the maxima of the two beams coincide (i.e.,

the phase is the same). These two beams can be combined to give a resultant light beam that is also linearly polarized. The key point here is that when two linearly polarized waves with the same wavelength (or frequency) are combined in phase, the resultant wave is linearly polarized and lies in a plane.

Fig. 2 Linear and elliptical polarization. (a) If two linearly polarized light beams that are in phase are combined, the resultant light beam is linearly polarized. (b) If two linearly polarized light beams that are out of phase are combined, the resultant light beam is elliptically polarized. In this particular example, they are out of phase by 90. Because the amplitudes are equal, the resultant beam is circularly polarized. Source: Ref 8

Figure 2(b) shows two beams where the maxima do not coincide, but are out of phase. When these two waves are combined, the tips of the arrows do not move back and forth in a plane as in the previous example. This is, in general, elliptically polarized light. The key point is that when two linearly polarized waves with the same wavelength (or frequency) are combined out of phase, the resultant wave is elliptically polarized or spiraling in three-dimensional space.

In ellipsometry the important fact is that when linearly polarized light makes a reflection on a metal surface, there is a shift in the phases of both the components (parallel and perpendicular to the plane of incidence). For non-normal incidence, the shift is, in general, not the same for both components, and hence the resultant light will be elliptically polarized. The induced amount of elliptical polarization depends on various factors including the optical properties of the substrate as well as the thickness and optical properties of overlying films. From this concept of elliptical polarization, the term ellipsometry takes its name for the measurement of induced ellipticity.
The Complex Index of Refraction. When light passes from one medium (e.g., ordinary room air) into another

medium that is not totally transparent (Fig. 1), several phenomena occur at the interface. Some of the light is reflected back and does not enter the second medium, while an unreflected component enters the second medium. The unreflected component will be considered first. The parameter used to describe the interaction of light with the material is the complex index of refraction, N, which is a combination of a real part and an imaginary part and is given as

N=n - jk

(Eq 1)

where n is also called the index of refraction (sometimes leading to confusion), k is called the extinction coefficient, and j is the imaginary number 1 . For a dielectric material such as glass, none of the light is absorbed and k= 0. In this case, only n is being considered. Both n and k are functions of the wavelength. It is not uncommon for a material to have k = 0 for a range of wavelengths and k 0 for another wavelength range. The index of refraction n is defined to be:

n = c/v

(Eq 2)

where c and v are the velocities of light in free space and in the material, respectively. The extinction coefficient k is a measure of how rapidly the light is absorbed as a function of depth in the material. A transparent material such as glass has an extinction coefficient of zero. Metals typically have values ranging from k = 2 to about k = 6.
Dispersion. It should be noted that n and k are not simple constants for a given medium, but are in fact functions of the

wavelength, . This is the reason that white light entering a prism emerges with the various colors separated. The term dispersion is used to describe the way in which the optical constants change with wavelength. Figure 3 shows how n and k vary for a metal such as nickel and for a dielectric such as silicon nitride (Ref 9). The index of refraction n, for both materials, is near 2 for the entire range of wavelength. From an optical point of view, the quantity that differentiates these two materials is not n, but k. In a material with k 0, the intensity of light I decreases as a function of distance into the material. The functional form is:

I/I0 = exp (-z)

where z is the distance into the material and is the absorption coefficient (related to the extinction coefficient, k). Because the intensity continuously decreases, the concept of how far the light goes into the material has no meaning. Instead, to illustrate penetration, the distance z is used where the quantity z is equal to unity and I/I0 = exp (-1) 0.37.

Fig. 3 Optical constants for (a) nickel and (b) silicon nitride. The value of k for silicon nitride is zero in the wavelength range shown. Source: Ref 9

Nickel has a value of k that is greater than 2 for the entire range. The thickness where the intensity drops to 37% is about 13 nm. For thicknesses three times this value, or about 40 nm, the material is essentially opaque. For silicon nitride, the value of k is zero for the entire range. This material is transparent.

References cited in this section

1. F.A. Jenkins and H.E. White, Fundamentals of Optics, 3rd ed., McGraw-Hill, 1957 2. J. Morgan, Geometrical and Physical Optics, McGraw-Hill, 1953 3. F.W. Sears, Optics, Addison-Wesley, 1958 4. M.V. Klein, Optics, John Wiley, 1970 5. G.S. Monk, Light, Dover, 1963 6. M. Born and E. Wolf, Principles of Optics, 4th ed., Pergamon Press, 1969 7. R.M.A. Azzam and N.M. Bashara, Ellipsometry and Polarized Light, North Holland Publishing Co., 1977 8. H.G. Tompkins, A User's Guide to Ellipsometry, Academic Press, 1993 9. E.D. Palik, Ed., Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids, Academic Press, 1985; E.D. Palik, Ed., Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids II, Academic Press, 1991 Single-Wavelength Ellipsometry (SWE)

Ellipsometry was first practiced by Paul Drude (Ref 10) just prior to 1890. The name ellipsometry was introduced by A. Rothen (Ref 11) in 1945. Clearly, this is not a recently developed technique. Ellipsometry uses monochromatic light, optical elements that change the polarization state of the light, some sort of detector, and some calculation facilities. Although rudimentary forms of these requirements have been present throughout this century, the development of the photomultiplier, the laser, and the desktop computer have greatly enhanced the use of this technique to the point that it is now routinely used as a metrology tool in semiconductor wafer manufacturing.
Instrumentation. Figure 4 shows the basic requirements for SWE. The figure shows the arrangement of a manual null

ellipsometer. The source generates monochromatic light, and the polarizer passes only light that is polarized in a particular direction. The quarter-wave plate (QWP) then converts the light to elliptically polarized light. If the polarizer and QWP are positioned correctly, the ellipticity is reversed by the reflection, giving linearly polarized light. The analyzer nulls out the light so that the intensity at the detector is zero. The optical elements used for the polarizer and analyzer are both polarizers. The terminology describes function, in that it is the function of the element called polarizer to cause the light to be polarized, and it is the function of the analyzer to determine the polarization state of the light.

Fig. 4 Schematic of manual null ellipsometer. The quarter-wave plate is fixed at either 45 and the polarizer and analyzer are rotated to find the null. The positions of the polarizer and analyzer are then used to calculate the ellipsometric parameters Del and Psi. Source: Ref 8

Operation of this instrument requires iterative adjustment of the polarizer and the analyzer until the null positions are located. The angular position of the polarizer and analyzer are then used to calculate the ellipsometric parameters, Del and Psi. Del is the reflection-induced phase shift between the waves that are perpendicular and parallel to the plane of incidence, and tan (Psi) is the amplitude attenuation ratio of the parallel wave to the perpendicular wave. Although the manual null instrument illustrates the concepts reasonably well, most commercial instruments are rotatingelement instruments. In some cases, the polarizer and analyzer are rotated by the instrument, under microprocessor control, until null is found. In other cases, only the analyzer is rotated, and Del and Psi are calculated from photometric measurements, rather than null positions.
Analysis of Films. Regardless of whether the measurement is made with a manual null instrument, a rotating-element

null instrument, or a rotating-element photometric instrument, the parameters that an ellipsometer measures are Del and Psi. For a film-free surface (a substrate), Del and Psi can be converted to the values of the optical constants for the substrate material, N = n - jk. The value of Del for a substrate will be between zero and 180 and the value of Psi will be between zero and 45. In Fig. 5, the film-free value of Del/Psi for silicon is about 178/10.5. If a dielectric film (i.e., k = 0) with index N = 1.46 is added, the location of the Del/Psi joint begins to change on the Del/Psi domain. When the film thickness is 20 nm, the Del/Psi location is about 129.9/13.7. As the thickness increases, the Del/Psi trajectory is traced out until the value of thickness reaches the period thickness. At this thickness, the Del/Psi point has returned to the filmfree location. For added thicknesses, the Del/Psi point simply retraces the trajectory. For the particular example given in the figure, the period thickness is 283.2 nm.

Fig. 5 The Del/Psi trajectory for silicon dioxide on silicon with angle of incidence of 70 and wavelength of 632.8 nm. Source: Ref 8

The physics and mathematics for converting ellipsometric measurements to optical constants and film thicknesses are beyond the scope of this article. The reader should refer to books by Azzam and Bashara (Ref 7) and Tompkins (Ref 8) for details. The important point to remember is that the technique relies on differences in phase shift and reflectance for the two directions of polarization, and on changes in these differences as a function of film thickness. The trajectory that is traced out depends on the index of refraction of the film. Figure 6 shows the first part of trajectories for films on silicon, with n values 1.46, 1.6, 1.8, and 2.0. If an unknown film were measured and the resulting values of Del/Psi were 70.0/28.9, it could be determined by inspection from Fig. 6 that the Del/Psi point falls on the n = 1.8 trajectory, and the position on this trajectory indicates that the thickness is 60 nm. Although the calculations to plot these trajectories can be made (Ref 8), normally the microprocessor in the ellipsometer makes the calculations and provides the values of n and thickness. This has led to the common misconception that ellipsometers measure the index of refraction and thickness. In fact, ellipsometers measure Deland Psi, and the values of n and thickness are calculated based on a model. The model is implicitly chosen when the program on the microprocessor is chosen (e.g., single film or substrate).

Fig. 6 The Del/Psi trajectories for films with several different indices of refraction on single crystal silicon substrates. The first 80 nm is shown. Source: Ref 8

Because of the periodicity, the resulting thickness value is not unique. A Del/Psi point of 129.9/13.7 could represent a film 20 nm thick, 283.2 + 20 nm thick, 2 283.2 + 20 nm thick, and so on. In many cases, other processing information can be used to deal with this matter. The deposition or film formation rate can often be used to estimate the film thickness to well within one period thickness. For a totally unknown film, however, other methods must be used. The period thickness depends on the index of refraction of the film, the angle of incidence, and the wavelength of light being used. By using another wavelength of light or another angle of incidence, the question of period can often be resolved. If unknown film stacks are routinely encountered, spectroscopic ellipsometry might be a more appropriate technique. For non-dielectric films, the Del/Psi trajectory does not close on itself. An example is shown in Fig. 7. Conceptually, with no film present, the Del/Psi point represents the substrate. When there is a thick film of an opaque material present, the Del/Psi point will represent a substrate of the film material. The Del/Psi trajectory during film growth is simply the movement of the Del/Psi point between the location for the original substrate to the location for a substrate of the film material. In Fig. 7 the growth of a tungsten film on silicon is shown. As long as the film is thin enough that light reaches the silicon substrate, ellipsometry can be used for film thickness measurements. For tungsten, the method could be used for films up to about 20 nm thick. Beyond that, the points are too close together for the method to be useful.

Fig. 7 The Del/Psi trajectory when a film of tungsten is deposited onto silicon. The small dots are at 1 nm intervals. The large dots are at 5 nm intervals from zero thickness. Source: Ref 8

Areas of Applicability. Ellipsometers can measure Del/Psi to a few hundredths of a degree. A change in film thickness

(with n = 2.0) of 0.1 nm represents about 0.25 in Del. This technique therefore can be used to measure monolayer changes. This is a particularly powerful technique in the thickness range from about 1 nm to a few hundred nanometers. When the thickness is greater than several period thicknesses, other techniques such as reflectometry may be more appropriate for thickness measurements. Even in this case, however, ellipsometry may be used to provide index of refraction information for the reflectometry instrument. When multiple films are present, information about the top film can be determined if information is available for all of the underlying films. In metrology situations, this is often the case, but for totally unknown films, other methods normally must be used.

References cited in this section

7. R.M.A. Azzam and N.M. Bashara, Ellipsometry and Polarized Light, North Holland Publishing Co., 1977 8. H.G. Tompkins, A User's Guide to Ellipsometry, Academic Press, 1993 10. P. Drude, Wied. Ann., Vol 36, 1889, p 532, 865; Vol 39, 1890, p 31 11. A. Rothen, Rev. Sci. Instruments, Vol 16, 1945, p 26 Reflectometry