Structural study of a low dielectric thin film using X-ray reflectivity and grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering

We have studied the structure of a high-porous silica thin film with pore sizes in nanometer scale using X-ray reflectivity and small angle X-ray scattering in grazing incidence geometry. The reflectivity data provide the information of surface and interface characteristics, density-depth profile, and porosity of the xerogel film. Whereas the grazing incidence small angle X-ray scattering results reveal the internal structure of the porous film, including pore shape and size, and averaged inter-pore spacing. It is demonstrated that the combination of these two techniques is a powerful structural characterization tool to porous thin films. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.