Small angle neutron scattering measurements of nanoscale lithographic features

State-of-the-art lithographic techniques are able to fabricate structures for the semiconductor and other nanofabrication industries with dimensions below 150 nm. The relentless drive to further miniaturize semiconductor devices has placed increasingly stringent demands on current microscopy-based techniques for precisely measuring the size and the quality (line-edge roughness) of lithographically produced features. Using newly developed neutron optics, we demonstrate the first application of small-angle neutron scattering to nondestructively and quantitatively measure both the dimension and the quality of 150 nm lines fabricated on single crystal silicon wafers. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.