title: High-throughput characterization of film thickness in thin film materials libraries by digital holographic microscopy.
abstract: A high-throughput characterization technique based on digital holography for mapping film thickness in thin-film materials libraries was developed. Digital holographic microscopy is used for fully automatic measurements of the thickness of patterned films with nanometer resolution. The method has several significant advantages over conventional stylus profilometry: it is contactless and fast, substrate bending is compensated, and the experimental setup is simple. Patterned films prepared by different combinatorial thin-film approaches were characterized to investigate and demonstrate this method. The results show that this technique is valuable for the quick, reliable and high-throughput determination of the film thickness distribution in combinatorial materials research. Importantly, it can also be applied to thin films that have been structured by shadow masking.
authors.affiliation: Research Department 'Integrity of Small-Scale Systems/High-Temperature Materials', Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany; Institute for Materials, Chair for Materials for Microsystems, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Yiu Wai
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Institute for Materials, Chair for Materials for Microsystems, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Krause
authors.affiliation: Institute for Materials, Chair for Materials for Microsystems, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Savan
authors.affiliation: Institute for Materials, Chair for Materials for Microsystems, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Sigurd
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thienhaus
authors.affiliation: Photonics and Terahertz Technology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Nektarios
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Koukourakis
authors.affiliation: Research Department 'Integrity of Small-Scale Systems/High-Temperature Materials', Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany; Photonics and Terahertz Technology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.affiliation: Research Department 'Integrity of Small-Scale Systems/High-Temperature Materials', Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany; Institute for Materials, Chair for Materials for Microsystems, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Alfred
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ludwig
keywords: combinatorial materials science; high-throughput characterization; optical methods; thin films