Abstract

The Institute of Critical Science and Technology (ICTAS) at Virginia Tech recently completed construction of the Nanoscale Characterization and Fabrication Labs located in the Corporate Research Center. This facility contains many state-of-the-art analytical tools (SIMS, XPS, SEM, FIB, TEM, AFM, etc.) to support research at VT. This presentation will focus on Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). SIMS is a commonly surface analytical technique in research and industry. SIMS combines excellent detection limits (ppm-ppb) with the ability to perform in-depth distribution analysis with nm scale depth resolution. SIMS is commonly used in the semiconductor industry for dopant depth profiling and trace impurity analysis. This presentation will focus on a description of the SIMS technique including a description of the fundamentals of the method and common applications.

 

Biography

Dr. Jerry Hunter has 20 years of experience in Surface analytical methods (SIMS, Auger, XPS). He received his Ph. D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of North Carolina in 1991. From 1992 to 1995, he was a failure analysis engineer at Philips Semiconductors (Sunnyvale, CA). From 1995 to 1998, Dr. Hunter served as a Surface Analysis Area Manager at Intel Corporation (Santa Clara, CA). During the period of 1998-2002, he was a VP of Operations and Technology at commercial analytical services company Accurel Systems (Sunnyvale, CA). During the period of 2002-2006, Dr. Hunter was a Western Regional Manager for Materials Analytical Services (Sunnyvale, CA). In 2007, he served as a Senior Technical Specialist at Evans Analytical Group (Sunnyvale, CA). He organized 2003 International SIMS meeting in San Diego, CA. Dr. Hunter started at Virginia Tech in September of 2007.