Analytical X-Ray Solutions for Thin Film and Wafer Analysis

X-ray diffraction methods are a very important non-destructive tool in analysis of thin films and bulk crystals alike. The ability to very accurately measure lattice d-spacings in a variety of geometries provides structural information, not only about lattice parameters, phase identification and crystal orientations, but also about different metrics of crystal and film quality. For thin films, obtainable parameters include composition and relaxation, micro-strain, stress, mosaicity, lateral and vertical correlation lengths and crystallite size, microscopic tilts and twists, dislocation density, as well as layer thickness, roughness / diffuseness, and density. For bulk crystals, X-ray diffraction can be used to determine crystal quality via rocking curves, and crystal orientation, for example the offcut magnitude and direction. In this work we present the capabilities of a few different laboratory diffractometers. We demonstrate several ways in which Reciprocal Space Mapping (RSM) can be performed, such as coplanar Ultrafast RSM using area detector or non-coplanar RSMs from fiber textured films. We compare several in-plane geometries on Empyrean and on X’Pert3 MRD (XL). We demonstrate the benefits of using a rotating slit in combination with an X-ray lens for consistent sample illumination at any Chi tilts, improving the quality of texture, non-coplanar RSM, and in-plane measurements. Next, we focus on the ability to make the analysis of X-ray reflectivity less model-dependent, by using our patented free-form analysis method. This can be especially in research process in cases when the layer model is difficult to build - either because of oxidation, interlayer formation, density gradients, or any other processes that would need to be explicitly known in advance to be included in a model. Finally, we present work on the rapid orientation determination of bulk crystals (wafers).