Patent ID: 7459913

Claim:
A method for determining continuity of a material on a substrate, comprising: depositing the material on the substrate using a first value of a growth metric; depositing an amount of charge on a surface of the material; repeatedly measuring a surface voltage of the material until an onset of tunneling to provide a Vtunnel value; repeating the above steps for different values of the growth metric; determining a growth mode of the material on the substrate, the determining including: comparing a first derivative of a Vtunnel per growth metric curve versus the growth metric; and examining a linearity of results of the comparison to determine the growth mode of the material on the substrate, wherein a linear region corresponds to a layer-by-layer growth mode of the material on the substrate, and wherein the non-linear region corresponds to an islanded growth mode of the material on the substrate; and comparing the Vtunnel values for different values of the growth metric to provide a measure of the continuity of the material on the substrate.