Nanoscale surface roughness characterization by full field polarized light-scattering

Characterizing surface roughness in nanoscale nondestructively is an urgent need for semiconductor and wafer manufacturing industries. To meet the need, an optical scatter instrument in bidirectional ellipsometry has been developed for characterizing nanoscale surface roughness, in particular, on the wafers after chemical–mechanical polishing. The polarized angular dependence of out-of-plane light-scattering from nanoscale surface roughness is analyzed and characterized. These analysis and characterization results show strong correlations of surface roughness and angular dependence of bidirectional ellipsometric parameters for full field light-scattering. The experimental findings prove good agreement with theoretical predictions for different surface roughnesses. As a result, the nanoscale surface roughness can be accurately measured and characterized by the angular dependence and the polarization of light scattered from surface.