ABSTRACT
The main aspects of the convergent beam electron diffraction technique (CBED) in a transmission electron microscope (TEM) for the quantitative strain analysis of silicon nanoregions are described. The presently employed procedure to obtain the components of the strain tensor from an experimental CBED pattern is detailed. The method has been applied to the analysis of strain in 0.22 p.m active stripes of shallow trench isolation (STI) structures for non volatile memories. The strain distribution along outlines parallel to the padoxide/Si interface in STI structures with different morphologies can be related to the different technological steps.
