Scanning X-ray excited optical luminescence microscopy of multi-crystalline silicon

In X-ray beam induced current (XBIC) in combination with X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray absorption (XAS) microscopy techniques is now widely used as a powerful tool for the investigation of transition metal (TM) behavior in Si. The aim of this work was to replace XBIC with a new recombination-sensitive, but contactless technique, that is, scanning X-ray beam excited optical luminescence microscopy (mu-SXEOL). We report for the first time the successful realization of mu-SXEOL to register the spatial distribution of band band luminescence in silicon in a reasonable time of 1 s/pixel with X-ray flux of 10(11)/s. Results of simultaneous mu-SXEOL/XBIC/mu-XRF measurements on multi-crystalline silicon are presented. A correlation between XBIC and mu-SXEOL maps of the same sample as well as significant differences are found. The magnitude of mu-SXEOL signal is shown to anti-correlate with the averaged amount of copper detected by mu-XRF. (c) 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim