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Content archived on 2024-04-30

Spectroscopic ellipsometry as sensor for steel nitridation

Objective



Plasma nitridation of steel and coating with titanium nitride is essential for hardening and enhancing the life time of steel surfaces. However. both processes are hardly controllable due to lack of in-process monitoring techniques. A new sensor technology (Spectroscopic Ellipsometry- SE) will be investigated as process monitoring and ultimately as process (closed loop) control technique for the steel coating/hardening processes. This provides an opportunity for monitoring the physical desorption process, determining (online) the parameters of nitride concentration, roughness, layer "thickness" and void fraction, identify the nucleation processes, and in last consequence gives the possibility to control the process in a closed loop system. It is ultimately expected, that the quality level can be increased about 10%. Single wavelength ellipsometry has been used on an industrial scale since a decade in the semiconductor area. For silicon/silicondioxide, or other semiconductors, there exist well established data; however for metals difficulties are present not known for "atomically plane" semiconductors. Research is required in order to tackle the difficulties connected to applying SE to polycrystalline and "rough" - steel surfaces and b) to a new process (plasma deposition). The R&D goals which need to be achieved are:- - to measure ex-process rough surfaces of steel and alloys. - to determine if the dielectric functions of steel, titanium nitride, and FexNy are different enough in a spectral region between 50 meV and 6 eV to distinguish the interfacial layers and the substrates. - to develop models for fitting the SE spectra in order to determine the wanted parameters thickness, void fraction, alloy composition and roughness. - to identify and overcome the difficulties for in-process measurements: use of strain free windows, effects of plasma lightning, weak signal/noise ratio, deposition at elevated temperature-s etc..

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Coordinator

RUEBIG GMBH & CO KG
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56,Schafwiesenstrasse 56
4600 WELS
Austria

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