Measurement of residual stress in a multi-layer semiconductor heterostructure by micro-Raman spectroscopy

Si-based multilayer structures are widely used in current microelectronics. During their preparation, some inhomogeneous residual stress is induced, resulting in com-petition between interface mismatching and surface energy and even leading to structure failure. This work presents a methodological study on the measurement of residual stress in a multi-layer semiconductor heterostructure. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), micro-Raman spectroscopy (MRS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were applied to measure the geometric parameters of the multi-layer structure. The relationship between the Raman spec-trum and the stress/strain on the [100] and [110] crystal orientations was determined to enable surface and cross-section residual stress analyses, respectively. Based on the Raman mapping results, the distribution of residual stress along the depth of the multi-layer heterostructure was suc-cessfully obtained.