Quantitative analysis of hydrogen in thin films using Time-of-Flight Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis

Determination of atomic concentrations in thin films is one of the key problems in materials science. Time-of-Flight Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis is a powerful method for depth profiling of light and medium mass elements in near surface layers of material. However, due to poor detection efficiency those spectrometers are not commonly used for hydrogen analysis. We have performed some improvements in order to increase detection efficiency and to make spectrometer more suitable for hydrogen analysis. The spectrometer performance was tested on amorphous Si samples implanted with H− and D− and hydrogenised Si standard reference sample. Sensitivity for hydrogen in silicon matrix was found to be several tens of ppm with a surface depth resolution of ~ 15 nm.