LOCAL CROSS-SECTIONAL PROFILING OF MULTILAYER THIN-FILMS WITH AN ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPE FOR LAYER THICKNESS DETERMINATION

A new essentially nondestructive cross-sectional method is described f or measuring the individual thicknesses of multilayer TdBa(2)Cu(3)O(7) (YBCO) and SrTiO3 (STO) thin films using off-axis ion milling and the atomic force microscope (AFM), Since the ion-milling is done during r outine patterning of a thin-film device and the AFM requires only a sm all area for imaging, no additional sample preparation is required. Th is is a significant improvement over traditional cross-sectional techn iques which often require lengthy and destructive sample preparation. Also, there is no a priori reason that this technique would not be ame nable to other multilayer thin-film systems.