Laloum D, Printemps T, Lorut F, Bleuet P. Correction of absorption-edge artifacts in polychromatic X-ray tomography in a scanning electron microscope for 3D microelectronics.
THE REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 2015;
86:013703. [PMID:
25638086 DOI:
10.1063/1.4905117]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
X-ray tomography is widely used in materials science. However, X-ray scanners are often based on polychromatic radiation that creates artifacts such as dark streaks. We show this artifact is not always due to beam hardening. It may appear when scanning samples with high-Z elements inside a low-Z matrix because of the high-Z element absorption edge: X-rays whose energy is above this edge are strongly absorbed, violating the exponential decay assumption for reconstruction algorithms and generating dark streaks. A method is proposed to limit the absorption edge effect and is applied on a microelectronic case to suppress dark streaks between interconnections.
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