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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
Scanning probe microscopy has been widely used to evaluate surface microroughness on Si wafers after chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) processes. In this article, we utilize atomic force microscopy (AFM) combined with laser light scattering to detect nano-scale surface defects called microscratches on CMP-finished Si wafers. We find that most microscratches detected by the combined method are very shallow trenches with widths and depths of 80–200 nm and 0.1–0.2 nm, respectively. The dependence of scattered-light intensity on the size of microscratches agrees with theoretical calculations within one order of magnitude.