The present work shows results on elemental distribution analyses in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin films for solar cells performed by use of wavelength-dispersive and energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX) in a scanning electron microscope, EDX in a transmission electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron, angle-dependent soft X-ray emission, secondary ion-mass (SIMS), time-of-flight SIMS, sputtered neutral mass, glow-discharge optical emission and glow-discharge mass, Auger electron, and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, by use of scanning Auger electron microscopy, Raman depth profiling, and Raman mapping, as well as by use of elastic recoil detection analysis, grazing-incidence X-ray and electron backscatter diffraction, and grazing-incidence X-ray fluorescence analysis. The Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin films used for the present comparison were produced during the same identical deposition run and exhibit thicknesses of about 2 μm. The analysis techniques were compared with respect to their spatial and depth resolutions, measuring speeds, availabilities, and detection limits.

Amorphous Si/SiOx multi-layered films and nanostructures were deposited on Si substrates by the glancing angle deposition technique using Ar ion beam sputtering of a Si sputter target in an intermittent oxygen atmosphere at room temperature. The chemical composition of the samples was characterized by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, as well as - for quantifying these first results - by elastic recoil detection analysis using a 200 MeV Au ion beam. The latter method was found to lead to a significant alteration of the sample morphology, resulting in the formation of complex nanometric structures within the layer stacks. In order to investigate these swift heavy ion irradiation induced effects in more detail, a series of experiments was conducted to determine the dominating influences. For this purpose, specific glancing angle deposited multilayered films and nanostructures were irradiated to constant ion fluence with the same 200 MeV Au ion beam at different incidence angles. Scanning electron microscopy of the stacks before and after swift Au ion irradiation revealed considerable changes in film morphology and density as a function of the ion incidence angle, such as an increased porosity of the silicon layers, accompanied by a layer swelling. In contrast, the SiOx layers did not show such effects, but exhibited clearly visible swift heavy ion tracks. The observed effects became stronger with decreasing ion incidence angle.

We introduce proton-proton scattering at a microprobe of 17 MeV protons to quantitatively image three dimensional hydrogen distributions in polycrystalline diamond at a lateral resolution better than 1 μm and high sensitivity. The images show that most of the hydrogen of a <110>-textured undoped polycrystalline diamond film is located at grain boundaries. The average amount of hydrogen is (8.1±1.5)·1014 atoms/cm2 along the grain boundaries which corresponds to about a third of a monolayer. The content within the grain is below the detection limit of 1.4·1016 atoms/cm2 (0.08 at-ppm).

During spike annealing of ultra-shallow junctions, large fractions of the dopants form a partially active pile-up at the interface between silicon and the screening oxide layer. In this paper, we show results of sheet resistance, SIMS and high resolution Elastic Recoil Detection measurements to investigate the physical and electrical behaviour of B and As dopant atoms at the interface.

Our results show that the fraction of dopants segregated at the interface is as high as 30-50% for B, but is dependent on dose and the type of screening oxide. Concentrations of up to 3e20cm-3 and more of active dopants are found on the Si side of the interface. The presence of nitrogen in the oxide at the interface causes a higher and sharper pile-up. Results indicate that a similar peak is expected for As, with active concentrations above 6e20cm-3. In an HF dip, the pile-up is removed together with the oxide or deactivated during native oxide regrowth.

Further experiments show that immediately after removing the screening oxide in an HF dip the sheet resistance for B decreases sharply due to carrier accumulation, then raises to about 6-9% above the initial level depending on the oxide and dopant species. The sharp decrease in resistance is not observed for As.

Elastic recoil detection (ERD) using energetic heavy ion beams (e.g. 170 MeV 127I) is a suitable method to measure depth profiles of light and medium heavy elements in thin films. The main advantages of ERD, which makes it favorable over many other techniques for elemental analysis, is the possibility to obtain reliable and quantitative results, a sensitivity in the ppm region or a depth resolution even better than 1 nm.

ERD analysis was employed to obtain quantitative information about the aluminium content x in MBE grown AlxGa1−xN layers on Al2O3 substrates. Using this stoichiometry information and the lattice constants obtained from high resolution X-ray diffraction, Vegard's law could be confirmed with high accuracy. Secondly, nitridation of heated Al2O3 substrates in NH3 atmosphere was investigated using high resolution ERD. A substantial nitrogen content on the surface of the substrate was detected which means a nearly complete AIN layer grown on the Al2O3 surface by a heat treatment only. Such a nitridation layer can be the base for further growth of nitrides on Al2O3 surfaces. As a third, the impurity content of group III nitrides was investigated in dependence on deposition conditions for both, MBE and MOCVD grown samples. In all samples investigated an oxygen concentration larger than 100 ppm was detected which is much higher than the intrinsic charge carrier density of these samples. In addition it is shown that the efficiency of p-doping by Mg may not only be hindered by hydrogen but also by carbon impurities.

AlxGa1-xN films were grown on c-plane sapphire by plasma induced molecular beam epitaxy with 0 ≤ x ≤ 1. The composition and purity of the AlxGa1-xN layers was determined by elastic recoil detection analysis with a relative error of 5% for the Al content. Both X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy indicate only a slight decrease in epitaxial quality of the AlxGa1-xN films with increasing Al content up to x = 0.65. X-ray diffraction is used to separate the effects of thermally induced biaxial compressive stress and the alloy composition on the shift of interplanar spacings by measuring both lattice constants. The deviation of the c/a ratio from that of fully relaxed films is a quantitative measure of the biaxial compressive stress leading to a distortion of the unit cell. Values up to 0.5 GPa were observed. By the method proposed, the determination of alloy composition can be corrected for this effect. The results obtained by this method are in very good agreement with the elastic recoil detection measurements substantiating the validity of Vegard's law. These results, compared with optical measurements, indicate that the bowing parameter of the optical bandgap is 1.3 eV within the experimental error.