Maximum at ALS: A Powerful Tool to Investigate Open Problems in Micro and Optoelectronics

We present recent results obtained by MAXIMUM at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. MAXIMUM is a scanning photoemission microscope, based on a multilayer coated Schwarzschild objective. An electron energy analyzer collects the emitted photoelectrons to form an image as the sample itself is scanned. The microscope has been purposely designed to take advantage of the high brightness of the third generation synchrotron radiation sources, and it installation at ALS has been recently completed. The spatial resolution of 100 nm and the spectral resolution of 200 meV make our instrument an extremely interesting tool to investigate current problems in opto- and microelectronics. In order to illustrate the potential of MAXIMUM in these fields, we report new results obtained by studying the electromigration in Al-Cu lines and the Al segregation in AIGaN thin films.