XPS depth profiling of silicon-dioxide/silicon system by means of monatomic and cluster argon ion sputtering

Rácz, Adél Sarolta and Olasz, Dániel and Menyhárd, Miklós and Homokiné Krafcsik, Olga (2026) XPS depth profiling of silicon-dioxide/silicon system by means of monatomic and cluster argon ion sputtering. APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE ADVANCES, 34. No. 101033. ISSN 2666-5239 (In Press)

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Abstract

Gas cluster ion beams (GCIB) are a relatively new technique for depth profiling organic and sensitive materials. There are only few studies on XPS cluster depth profiling of inorganic materials particularly oxides. In this work a systematic study is presented on a technologically very important system SiO2/Si which is also regularly applied as a reference in depth profiling studies. In this work clusters of various energies (8 and 6 keV) and of Ar sizes (1000, 500, 150) are used for depth profiling and compared to that of using monatomic (0.5 keV) argon ion sputtering. It is shown that non-stoichiometric silicon oxide is formed at the interfaces, which is the most dominant in the case of cluster of 8 keV 150 while the lowest in the case of cluster of 6 keV 1000. Interestingly in the case of monatomic sputtering the presence of non-stoichiometric oxide remains low compared to other cluster configurations. AFM measurements have shown roughness increase for all cluster depth profiling configurations while only slight roughening was found in the case of monatomic sputtering. Monatomic sputtering still represents a safe alternative for depth profiling inorganics with reasonable sputtering rate.

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