Tobias Schülli
Scientist
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
Grenoble, France

Nano X-ray diffraction imaging of strain and structure in semiconductors and devices

X-ray diffraction has played an important role in the analysis of strain, texture and epitaxial relation. Traditionally x-ray diffraction is considered as a method with poor spatial resolution yielding only spatial averages as useful results. Very recent developments in the use of highly focused beams produced on the most advanced synchrotron sources show however a great and rapidly developing potential of diffraction imaging techniques. Brought to maturity during the first phase of the ESRF upgrade these techniques allow for strain and texture imaging in thin films with a spatial resolution below 10 nm and strain sensitivity of =a/a<10-5 . With the capacity of imaging buried layers and the enormous gain in data recording speed (comparable to ̻̻̻other scanning probe methods) this strain imaging techniques offer a highly promising method for the characterization of advanced materials and devices. The talk will give an overview on the state of the art of the nano diffraction imaging techniques readily available at ID01 with examples from recently obtained results ranging from Silicon based devices to novel perovskite based Solar cells.

Biography:
Tobias Schülli obtained his PhD at the University of Linz at the Institute for semiconductor physics in 2003 supervised by Prof. Guenther Bauer. After a post doc at the CEA Grenoble he joined XENOCS Company in end customer and B2B marketing. In 2006 he returned to CEA to develop in situ x-ray scattering methods during growth of semiconductors on Beamline BM32 at the ESRF. He has been lecturing diffraction and X-ray physics in English, French and German at the University of Linz and at various topical schools. Since 2009 Tobias Schülli works as ESRF staff scientist in charge of the conceptual and technical design and construction of the micro diffraction imaging Beamline ID01 and since 2015 he is head of the X-ray Nano-Probe group of the ESRF. His research focuses on the structure function relationship of nanomaterials applying X-ray based strain- and structural imaging tools.