Chemical selective microstructural analysis of thin film using resonant x-ray reflectivity

Strong modulations of the reflected x-ray intensities near the respective absorption edges of the constituent materials promise to determine layer composition of thin film structures along with spectroscopic like information. Near the absorption edge, the orders of magnitude more contrast beyond the pure electron density distributions of materials find an approach to overcome the low density difficulty of the conventional x-ray reflectivity technique. These aspects are explained by experimental studies on partially decomposed boron nitride thin films. Chemical composition profile is determined from free surface to the embedded buried layer with depth resolution in nanometer scale. The results of resonant reflectivity for chemical analysis are correlated with depth dependent x-ray photo electron spectroscopy. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.