Electrical nanoscale measurements with 1 aF sensitivity in capacitance and 10E14 atoms/cm3 to 10E20 atoms/cm3 for dC/dV dopant profiling measurements with either capacitance or dopant profiling showing sub-10 nm lateral resolution

We showed the capability of the SMM to measure calibrated capacitances and dopant densities on the nanoscale. In particular we have shown a noise level of 1 aF for capacitance measurements and a dynamic range of 10E14-10E20 atoms/cm3 for dopant profiling. The sensitivity for the dopant profiling varies with respect to the dopant density; overall we have a relative accuracy of 20% on both capacitance and dopant profiling measurement. Furthermore we were able to show a lateral resolution of 10 nm using standard electrical conductive cantilevers and semiconductor samples. There is upside potential along all the performance parameters in case they are required for the future VSMM project: the sensitivity of the capacitance measurement can potentially be improved to the sub-aF using standard PNA averaging capabilities while improved lateral resolution below 10 nm is envisioned using sharpened AFM tips. We tested the general useability of the capacitance calibration samples from MC2 including reproducibility, cleaning of dirt adhered to the gold caps, stability of the native oxide, the gluing of samples to steel plates for magnetic mounting etc. Overall the performance of the calibration samples is properly shown and verified by a large amount of test experiments. The MC2 calibration samples can be used for the further work in the VSMM project regarding SMM capacitance calibration, and the current SMM delivers enough sensitivity for the project objectives in terms of capacitance measurements and lateral resolution.