Comparison of thermoreflectance and scanning thermal microscopy for microelectronic device temperature variation imaging: Calibration and resolution issues

We have studied temperature variations on two submicrometric dissipative structures with two different techniques. On one hand, we have used a thermoreffectance imaging technique which is a well-known non contact optical method to evaluate temperature variations but whose spatial resolution is limited by diffraction. On the other hand, we have used a scanning thermal microscope (SThM) to study the thermal behaviour of these small dissipative structures. We present qualitative results obtained by both methods and we compare their advantages and drawbacks in terms of calibration and spatial resolution for thermal measurements on microelectronic devices. In particular, we show how the thermoreffectance coefficient can become an advantage to enhance the image contrast and favour the spatial resolution. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.