Failure Analysis from Micro to Nano Scale

Failure analysis is a critical part of new product development and troubleshooting of existing products. Product performance can fail due to incorrect formulations, insufficient homogeneity, degradation, contaminations, and many other factors. An examination from macro to microscopic scale combined with the chemical analysis will allow to reveal the reason of failure. Molecular spectroscopy is among the most powerful tools for this application. Each molecule has a unique infrared and Raman signature providing great specificity in the identification process. The distribution of chemicals can also be determined by collecting infrared spectral images. Special AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) techniques can also be employed in order to get IR spectra and images resolved far below the diffraction limit. This webinar will be focused on the process of utilizing IR and Raman spectroscopy to characterize contaminations of the various industrial, semiconductor and pharmaceutical products down to a scale of a few nanometers.

The following topics will be discussed in details:

• Sample preparation and standard routines of failure analysis
• Distribution of chemicals in inhomogeneous samples
• Analysis of multilayer films
• Characterization of nanoscale defects
• Search through spectroscopy libraries

Real-world examples of product troubleshooting such as contamination in liquids, polymers, circuit boards will be presented.