Investigation of Ti nanostructures via laboratory scanning-free GEXRF

The ability to characterize periodic nanostructures in the laboratory gains more attention as nanotechnology is widely utilized in a variety of application fields. Scanning-free grazing-emission X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (GEXRF) is a promising candidate to allow non-destructive, element-sensitive characterization of sample structures down to the nanometer range for process engineering. Adopting a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) detector to work energy-dispersively via single-photon detection, the whole range of emission angles of interest can be recorded at once. In this work, a setup based on a Cr X-ray tube and a CMOS detector is used to investigate two TiO₂ nanogratings and a TiO₂ layer sample in the tender X-ray range. The measurement results are compared to simulations of sample models based on known sample parameters. The fluorescence emission is simulated using the finite-element method together with a Maxwell-solver. In addition, a reconstruction of the sample model based on the measurement data is conducted to illustrate the feasibility of laboratory scanning-free GEXRF as a technique to non-destructively characterize periodic nanostructures in the tender X-ray range.