Epitaxial lift-off for sample preparation of x-ray absorption fine structure.

We propose a simple sample preparation technique of x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) for its application to the individual layer of practical compound semiconductor devices. An epitaxial lift-off process enables the investigation of pure uppermost thin epitaxial layer without containing information of the bottom-side layers as well as substrate. The plain procedure offers smooth thin film with desired thickness preserving its crystallographic structure, suitable for the measurement. We carry out XAFS measurements for 2.0 and 0.2 microm thick GaAs epitaxial layer at transmission and fluorescence mode, respectively. Clear extended-XAFS oscillation is obtained, and the radial distribution function of which deduces accurate first nearest-neighbor Ga-As bond length to be 2.46 A for both the samples. That shows the feasibility of the proposed technique for the analysis of the precise atomic configurations of thin film semiconductors.