Determination of Tungsten Layer Profiles in Bilayer Structures Using X-Ray Reflectivity Method

An effectual method is presented to determine the profiles of a tungsten (W) layer, such as the density, the thickness and the roughness in the multilayer structures, using the x-ray reflectivity technique. To avoid oxidation effects of tungsten, a B 4 C capping layer is deposited onto to the W layer. To observe the profiles of the tungsten layer with different thicknesses, three groups of W/B 4 C bilayers with different thicknesses are prepared by using ultra high vacuum dc magnetron sputtering and measured by an x-ray diffractometer. A type of genetic algorithm called the differential evolution is used to simulate the measurement data so as to obtain the parameters of bilayers. According to the simulation, it is shown that the W layer density varies from 95.26% to 97.51% compared to the bulk. In our experiment, the deposition rate is 0.044 nm/s, and the thickness is varied in the range of 9.8–19.4 nm.