Atom Probe Tomography (APT) on Ti-based Silicide Contact Materials

APT is based on the field evaporation of atoms from a needle. A position sensitive detector provides the spatial information of the ions, while, the elemental information is obtained by measuring the time of flight of these ionized atoms. The introduction of the laser assisted field evaporation extends the application of this method to semiconducting or insulating materials. However, there is a significant need for data demonstrating the reliability of the method for typical material systems used in the microelectronics due to the complex nature of laser assisted field evaporation. \\ In this contribution, APT is applied to Titanium based layer structures which are typically used for direct transistor contacts. The examined layer stack consists of a $\mathrm{TiSi}_2$ layer with a TiN layer on top grown by PVD followed by an annealing on a p+ - doped Si(001) substrate. Such layer stacks are well known to the microelectronic community. Hence, this sample type can be used to evaluate the opportunities and limits of APT. Particularly, the usage of unstructured samples allows the direct comparison to more common analytical methods as TEM and SIMS.\\ Supported by BMBF (Project No 13N9432).