The thickness of Al thin films on 1000Å SiO
2 was estimated by using X-ray fluorescence (XRF). It was found thatÅ when the films were less than 1000Å thick, the number of Al XRF counts was directly proportional to the Al thickness. Therefore, Al thickness is given by
t=
a(
If-
Bg) within an error of 3.0%, where
a and
Bg are constant and background noise, and
If is the Al XRF count. In the Al film thicknes range of 2000Å to 1.2 μm, XRF counts vs. Al thickness becomes nonlinear due to Al self-absorption. The Al thickness was given by
t=-
a·ln(1-(
If-
Bg/
Imax)), where
Imax is maximum value measured by Al XRF. The maximum relative error was 1.6%. However, for the Al film thickness range of 1000Å to 2000Å, the relative error was 9.7%.
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