Nanoparticles and plasmon resonance based probe for failure analysis of ULSI microchips and electrical characterizations of metallic interconnects

In this paper, we present the concept of novel contact-free probe enabling to, obtain high accuracy electrical characterizations of interconnection lines within working ULSI microchips. The probe consists of a tapered optical fiber and a certain structure of metallic nanorods (ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic) located within a hole drilled inside the fiber. Using the proposed probe, the waveform of electrical currents is reproduced from the change in the scattering cross section of two interacted metallic nanorods. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.