For reduced gate leakage and enhanced device performance, many IC manufacturers utilize novel metal gate technologies instead of traditional poly silicon gates. The new materials and geometries required to form metal gates mean that new parameters control the optimization of device performance [1]. Traditional gate process control has relied heavily on scatterometry for ensuring that variation in structural dimensions remain in control, as some dimensional deviations can strongly affect device performance.

We describe the design, construction, and performance of a 4-circle in-vacuum diffractometer for resonant elastic soft x-ray scattering. The diffractometer, installed on the resonant elastic and inelastic x-ray scattering beamline at the Canadian Light Source, includes 9 in-vacuum motions driven by in-vacuum stepper motors and operates in ultra-high vacuum at base pressure of 2 × 10-10 Torr. Cooling to a base temperature of 18 K is provided with a closed-cycle cryostat.

We observe apparent hole pockets in the Fermi surfaces of single-layer Bi-based cuprate superconductors from angle-resolved photoemission. From detailed low-energy electron diffraction measurements and an analysis of the angle-resolved photoemission polarization dependence, we show that these pockets are not intrinsic but arise from multiple overlapping superstructure replicas of the main and shadow bands.

Rare earth doping is a standard, yet experimentally poorly understood method to increase the Curie temperature (TC) of the ferromagnetic semiconductor EuO. Here, we report on the charge carrier density (n) and the TC of commonly used 4.2 at. % Gd-doped EuO films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy on (110) oriented YAlO3 substrates at various substrate temperatures (Tsub). Increasing Tsub leads to a decrease in n and TC. For high substrate temperatures the Gd-doping is rendered completely inactive: n and TC drop to the values of undoped EuO. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.

This paper discusses the scatterometry-based metrology measurement of 28nm high k metal gate after-develop inspection (ADI) and after-etch inspection (AEI) layer structures. For these structures, the critical measurement parameters include side wall angle (SWA) and critical dimension (CD). For production process control of these structures, a metrology tool must utilize a non-destructive measurement technique, and have high sensitivity, precision and throughput.

Rare earth doping is the key strategy to increase the Curie temperature (TC) of the ferromagnetic semiconductor EuO. The interplay between doping and charge carrier density (n), and the limit of the TC increase, however, are yet to be understood. We report measurements of n and TC of Gd-doped EuO over a wide range of doping levels. The results show a direct correlation between n and TC, with both exhibiting a maximum at high doping. On average, less than 35% of the dopants act as donors, raising the question about the limit to increasing TC. © 2010 The American Physical Society.

La-doped and Y-doped Bi2 Sr2 CaCu2 O 8+δ compounds Bi2Sr2-xLax(Ca,Y )Cu2 O8+δ, which range from the insulator to the deeply underdoped superconductor, have been studied by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We have observed that the lower Hubbard band (LHB) of the parent insulator is gradually shifted upward with doping without significantly changing the band dispersions, which implies a downward shift of the chemical potential with hole doping.

X-ray absorption spectra on the overdoped high-temperature superconductors Tl2Ba2CuO6+δ and La2-xSrxCuO4±δ reveal a striking departure in the electronic structure from that of the underdoped regime. The upper Hubbard band, identified with strong correlation effects, is not observed on the oxygen K edge, while the lowest-energy prepeak gains less intensity than expected above p∼0.21.