Transmission Electron Microscopy developed from an imaging tool into a quantitative electron beam characterization tool that locally accesses structure, chemistry, and bonding in materials with sub Angstrom resolution. Experiments utilize coherently and incoherently scattered electrons. In this contribution, the interface between gallium nitride and sapphire as well as thin silicon gate oxides are studied to understand underlying physical processes and the strength of the different microscopy techniques. An investigation of the GaN/sapphire interface benefits largely from the application of phase contrast microscopy that makes it possible to visualize dislocation core structures and single columns of oxygen and nitrogen at a closest spacing of 85 pm. In contrast, it is adequate to investigate Si/SiOxNy/poly-Si interfaces with incoherently scattered electrons and electron spectroscopy because amorphous and poly crystalline materials are involved. Here, it is demonstrated that the SiOxNy/poly-Si interface is rougher than the Si/SiOx interface, that desirable nitrogen diffusion gradients can be introduced into the gate oxide, and that a nitridation coupled with annealing increases its physical width while reducing the equivalent electrical oxide thickness to values approaching 1.2 nm. Therefore, an amorphous SiNxOy gate dielectric seems to be a suitable substitute for traditional gate oxides to further increase device speed by reducing dimensions in Si technology.
