Patent attributes
Methods and systems for performing optical measurements of the porosity of geometric structures filled with a fill material by a capillary condensation process are presented herein. Measurements are performed while the structure under measurement is treated with a flow of purge gas that includes a controlled amount of vaporized fill material. A portion of the fill material condenses and fills openings in the structural features such as pores of a planar film, spaces between structural features, small volumes such as notches, trenches, slits, contact holes, etc. In one aspect, the desired degree of saturation of vaporized material in the gaseous flow is determined based on the maximum feature size to be filled. In another aspect, measurement data is collected when a structure is unfilled and when the structure is filled. The collected data is combined in a multi-target model based measurement to estimate values of porosity and critical dimensions.
