René Hammer

Nanoprobing imaging equipment for Electron Beam Absorbed Current/Resistive Contrast Imaging (EBAC/RCI) and Electron Beam Induced Current (EBIC) techniques is widely used in the semiconductor industry for process control and development. As components of electronic devices become smaller, the impact of electron beam irradiation becomes more severe, and the use of low beam acceleration voltages coupled with low beam current is recommended to avoid transistor damage [1-2]. Necessity for lower beam current leads to much reduced nanoprobing imaging signals, and thus lower overall signal-to-noise ratio. In this article, we describe the development of a novel pA noise-level amplifier for RCI and EBIC measurements of high impedance samples. A peak-to-peak noise level of 3 pA is shown here with this new amplifier. We compare experimental performance of this novel low noise amplifier to an established reference amplifier and illustrate the gained benefits and new limits for RCI measurements.

[1] A. Qiu, W. Lowe, M. Arora, Int. Symp. for Testing and Failure Analysis. Vol. 82747 ASM Int. (2019)
[2] Y. Mitsui, T. Sunaoshi, J. C. Lee, Microelectronics Reliability 49.9-11 (2009): 1182-1187

Dr. René Hammer graduated from Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg with a Physics diploma in 2007, and then continued in the Surface Science group as a PhD student and a Post Doc researcher to investigate structural and electronic structure of thin organic films on noble-metal single-crystals, which included low-temperature scanning-tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. Dr. René Hammer joined point electronic GmbH in 2016, where he is currently a scientist and Product Manager for Electrical Analysis systems in SEM and TEM, focusing on instrument development and application science in a wide range of fields and industries, including semiconductor, energy and novel nano-devices.