Investigation of surface morphology of SiC during SIMS analysis

Impurity or elemental depth profiles are often influenced by the surface morphology changes during SIMS analyses. The surface morphology changes caused by ion bombardment depend on matrix material and have been reported on the materials such as Si, GaAs and GaN. In this study, we found the similar surface roughness in the case of SiC material under various Cs+ bombardment conditions. The surface morphology was observed using atomic force microscopy. The surface roughness during Cs+ bombardment at high angle of incidence becomes larger and that results in greater change in the secondary ion intensities. And the secondary ion intensity changes at the depth of less than several hundred nanometers. Primary ion with energy below 1 keV should be necessary to avoid both morphology change and secondary ion intensity change at high angle of incidence.