TY - JOUR

T1 - Soft X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy for Nano-Scaled Layered Structure Materials

AU - Majhi, A.

AU - Nayak, Maheswar

AU - Pradhan, P. C.

AU - Filatova, E. O.

AU - Sokolov, A.

AU - Schäfers, F.

N1 - Funding Information: The author M.N. sincerely acknowledges Dr. P.A. Naik for support and encouragement during the work. Authors A.M., M.N. and P.C.P. thank Dr. S. Rai and Dr. Tapas Ganguli for hard x-ray reflectivity measurements and for support during the work, respectively. Two of the authors (A.M. and P.C.P.) thank Homi Bhabha National Institute, India, for financial support. Publisher Copyright: © 2018, The Author(s). Copyright: Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2018/12/1

Y1 - 2018/12/1

N2 - We introduce a novel approach that addresses the probing of interfacial structural phenomena in layered nano-structured films. The approach combines resonant soft x-ray reflection spectroscopy at grazing incidence near the “critical angle” with angular dependent reflection at energies around the respective absorption edges. Dynamic scattering is considered to determine the effective electron density and hence chemically resolved atomic profile across the structure based on simultaneous data analysis. We demonstrate application of the developed technique on the layered model structure C (20 Å)/B (40 Å)/Si (300 Å)/W (10 Å)/substrate. We precisely quantify atomic migration across the interfaces, a few percent of chemical changes of materials and the presence of impurities from top to the buried interfaces. The results obtained reveal the sensitivity of the approach towards resolving the compositional differences up to a few atomic percent. The developed approach enables the reconstruction of a highly spatio-chemically resolved interfacial map of complex nano-scaled interfaces with technical relevance to many emerging applied research fields.

AB - We introduce a novel approach that addresses the probing of interfacial structural phenomena in layered nano-structured films. The approach combines resonant soft x-ray reflection spectroscopy at grazing incidence near the “critical angle” with angular dependent reflection at energies around the respective absorption edges. Dynamic scattering is considered to determine the effective electron density and hence chemically resolved atomic profile across the structure based on simultaneous data analysis. We demonstrate application of the developed technique on the layered model structure C (20 Å)/B (40 Å)/Si (300 Å)/W (10 Å)/substrate. We precisely quantify atomic migration across the interfaces, a few percent of chemical changes of materials and the presence of impurities from top to the buried interfaces. The results obtained reveal the sensitivity of the approach towards resolving the compositional differences up to a few atomic percent. The developed approach enables the reconstruction of a highly spatio-chemically resolved interfacial map of complex nano-scaled interfaces with technical relevance to many emerging applied research fields.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055465839&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-018-34076-5

DO - 10.1038/s41598-018-34076-5

M3 - Article

C2 - 30356092

AN - SCOPUS:85055465839

VL - 8

JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

SN - 2045-2322

IS - 1

M1 - 15724

ER -