Contactless electrical characterization of

low conductivity semiconductor surfaces and thin films

C. L. Petersen∗
SensaWave Technology Inc., Burnaby, BC, Canada

A method for contactless detection of the lateral electrical transport properties of semiconductor
surfaces and thin films is presented. Small changes in the electrical response of a capacitive trans-
mission line are used to extract information about the local sheet resistance at the sample surface.
Measurements on undoped GaAs demonstrate excellent repeatability and agreement with theory.
The technique has an upper detection limit in the tera-ohm range, and can offer new insight into
near surface transport in low conductivity materials.

I. INTRODUCTION II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Accurate electrical characterization of thin films and
semiconductor materials is important for the contin-
ued development of the semiconductor industry and re-
lated advanced manufacturing. The two most widespread
methods for the probing of such electrical properties are
the well-known four-point1 and eddy current2 techniques.
While these techniques are suited for measuring on thick
substrates with high conductivity, they perform poorly
on thin films and at low conductivities, due to film/depth
penetration and limits in the upper detection range of the
methods. In many cases the only option for characteri-
zation of low conductivity films is direct deposited elec-
trodes, which adds significant processing time in manu-
facturing and prohibits in-line test.
Capacitive probing is sensitive to transport in low con-
ductivity materials, and is therefore a potential alterna-
tive to the conventional techniques in this regime. Trans-
verse capacitance measurements have previously been
used to measure the properties of low conductivity com-
pound semiconductor substrates3 . However, this trans-
verse approach requires access to both sides of the sub-
strates and is inherently insensitive to the lateral surface
transport properties, which are of interest in most thin
film applications.
The present work concerns a surface-sensitive capac-
itive probing technique capable of contactless measure-
ments of electrical sheet resistance. It is based on the
Sommer-Tanner method for electrodeless electrical char-
acterization, previously used for measurements on two-
dimensional electron systems at low temperatures4–7 .
The Sommer-Tanner model is well understood and can
readily be applied to other systems to which a two-
dimensional analogy applies. With appropriate geometry
considerations this includes both homogenous substrates
and thin films. The method has previously been reported
used to measure the resistivity of 1 µm thick α-Si:H films
with large fixed electrodes8 .
This paper presents a small scanning probe capable
of accurately measuring local lateral transport in thin
films and surfaces, aimed at providing a practical method
for electrodeless in-line measurements on low conductiv-
ity semiconducting and semi-insulating thin films, com-
pound semiconductors, and similar materials.
The probe used for this study was of a rectangular
geometry as shown in Fig. 1. It formed a capacitive
transmission line consisting of two main electrodes sep-
arated by a narrow grounded center electrode, intended
to reduce direct capacitive coupling between the main
electrodes. The main electrodes were of identical dimen-
sions, width s of 1.27 mm and length L of 2.54 mm. The
overall probe width W was 3.1 mm.
The probe was mounted on a motorized XYZ gantry
stage with a resolution of 2 µm and repeatability of ap-
proximately 10 µm, and could be positioned anywhere on
a sample surface within an area of 350 mm × 350 mm.
The probe interface was a combination of an auto-
mated digital AC bridge and a digital dual phase lock-in
amplifier with a fixed input gain of 1,000. This bridge
design expands on previously reported high precision ca-
pacitance detectors9,10 , and can be balanced in real-time
regardless of the complex nature of the probe impedance
by means of a stochastic gradient search technique11 .
A periodic reference signal V with a frequency from
80 Hz to 10,000 Hz and an amplitude of 500 mV was
applied to the probe, and the AC bridge was used to bal-
ance the probe output against a precision 5 pF silvered
mica reference capacitor, Cref . The AC bridge typically
reduced the signal measured at the lock-in amplifier to
about 10 µV, irrespective of the complex impedance of
the transmission line probe. This allowed a large ampli-
fication of the lock-in error signal and the probe capaci-
tance was determined with high precision from12
Cprobe = (γverr + β) Cref , (1)
where verr is the lock-in error signal, γ is a calibration
factor, and β is the bridge balance ratio, as set by the
automatic AC bridge.
The capacitance resolution achieved with this interface
was approximately 10 aF, corresponding to a balance res-
olution on the order of 1:100,000. This high sensitivity
made it possible to detect very small variations in elec-
trical impedance of the sample surface.
 2

W
20 Re C

(a) L 15
s

Ceff [fF]
10
Auto-nulling bridge

(b) Lock-in
5
C ref Verr - Im C

0
−βV V

Sample
-5 1
XYZ positioning 10 102 103 104
Frequency [Hz]

FIG. 1: Contact-less electrical characterization setup. (a) FIG. 2: Frequency sweep on an undoped GaAs wafer. The
Top view of probe geometry. (b) Side view with electronic solid lines show a least squares fit to the Sommer-Tanner
interface schematic. transmission line model.

III. SOMMER-TANNER METHOD IV. RESULTS

The assumption in the Sommer-Tanner model is that The sample was a 3 inch diameter and 625 µm thick
the sample forms a two dimensional system capacitively polished undoped GaAs wafer.
coupled to the transmission line measuring electrodes, The probe had an intrinsic capacitance of 144 fF,
with a capacitance per area given by and showed negligible resistive response in the frequency
ǫ0 ǫr range considered here (80 Hz - 10 kHz).
C2 = , Measurements were done by placing the probe in close
d
proximity to the sample surface with a gap of approxi-
where d is the gap separating the electrodes and the sam- mately 300 µm, and recording the changes in capacitance
ple, and ǫ0 ǫr is the permittivity of the gap. with frequency. The observed variations were typically
In this picture the effective capacitance of the probe on the order of 10-20 fF, as shown in Fig. 2. A strong fre-
can be expressed by8 quency dependence was evident, and the Sommer-Tanner
model in Eq. 2 provided an excellent fit, shown as solid
lines in Fig. 2. Fitting was performed automatically using
Cef f W δ sinh2 (iks) a simplex least squares method to simultaneously deter-
= (1 + i) 2 , (2)
C0 2is sinh(ikW ) mine C0 and the RC2 product.
The sheet resistance can be extracted from the fit-
where ting parameters by means of Eq. 4. Fig. 3 shows the
r resulting sheet resistance for repeated measurements in
1−i 2
k= ,δ = , (3) the same location. The probe was lifted from the sur-
δ ωRC2 face between each measurement. The measurements re-
vealed a considerable photoconductive effect; there was
ω being the angular frequency of the reference signal, R
a marked drop in the resistance under illumination. Un-
representing the sample sheet resistance, and
der dark conditions the measured sheet resistance was
s2 L (6.34±0.06)×1010 Ω/2, while under fluorescent ambient
C0 = C2 . (4) lighting the sheet resistance was (4.50±0.05)×1010 Ω/2.
W In both cases the measurements showed good repro-
C0 represents the capacitance in the limit where k → 0, ducibility, with relative standard deviations of 1.1 % and
corresponding to a sample of infinite conductivity. 1.0 % in light and darkness, respectively.
The total measured probe capacitance is The technique presented here is automated and rea-
sonably fast (approx. 5 s per site), and can therefore
Cprobe = Cintrinsic + Cef f , (5) be used to map the sheet resistance at different posi-
tions on a sample surface. Fig. 4 shows such a map-
where Cintrinsic is the intrinsic probe capacitance in the ping performed on the GaAs wafer. Variations were ob-
absence of the sample. served across the sample; there was an area of lower re-
 3

7 sistance and a tendency for higher resistance near the

wafer edge. The mean sheet resistance across the wafer
Sheet resistance [1010Ω/sq.]
6.5 was (6.18±0.47)×1010 Ω/2, the relative standard devia-
tion being 7.6 %. The average resistivity of the sample
No lighting was thus determined to be 3.86×109 Ωcm.
6

5.5
V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
5
A capacitive surface probe with attofarad resolution
4.5 that enables electrodeless measurements of electrical
Fluorescent ambient lighting
properties on low conductivity substrates and thin films
4 has been developed.
The measured frequency dependence of the probe ca-
3.5 pacitance in proximity to an undoped GaAs wafer sur-
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 face shows excellent agreement with the Sommer-Tanner
model. The sheet resistance can be extracted in a reli-
Measurement index
able manner, with a repeatability on the order of ±1%
when the probe is fully retracted from the surface be-
FIG. 3: Repeated measurements on an undoped GaAs wafer
tween measurements. Local variations in sheet resistance
under different lighting conditions. The probe was withdrawn
from the surface between each measurement.
can be imaged by automatic scanning of the probe across
the sample surface.
The upper detection limit for the technique is es-
timated to be 1012 Ω with the current probe geome-
try. Smaller probe electrode geometries will increase this
limit, as well as the relative detection signal8 . A spatial
resolution on the order of 100 µm is likely obtainable by
scaling the geometry and increasing the sensitivity of the
electrical interface.
The characterization technique presented here offers a
simple and practical alternative to deposited electrodes,
and is well suited for in-line test. Further measurements
are needed to compare the results of this technique with
conventional methods.

VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The GaAs wafer was provided by Dr. SpringThorpe at

the NRC Institute for Microstructural Sciences.
FIG. 4: Surface sheet resistance map on an undoped 3 inch This work was supported in part by the National Re-
GaAs wafer. The map is interpolated from 109 measurement search Council Canada through its Industrial Research
points using a least squares bivariate spline approximation. Assistance Program.

∗
Electronic address: chris.p@sensawave.com (1996).
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