Applications of focused MeV ions to materials modification and analysis

Abstract

Over the past three years, the nuclear microprobe has been employed on a wide range of projects involving materials modification and analysis. These projects have invariably taken advantage of the unique properties of MeV ions to penetrate below the surface of a solid to probe buried features of interest, or to produce regions of modified material along the ion track. Over the same time, developments have continued to occur in both nuclear microprobe technology and applications. Improved lenses for focusing MeV ion beams continue to be developed. New techniques for new applications have also been developed, including that of ‘mixed beams’ where the ion the focused probe is rapidly switched between H and He ions of differing energy but the same magnetic rigidity. This technique has been applied to the analysis of microelectronic devices and fabrication of microstructures in resists. The study of damage produced by a microbeam continues to yield interesting results and reported here is a new study of the end of range phenomena of implanted ions by microanalysis with a focused probe incident at right angles to the original implanted ion. The damage has been utilised to fabricate a variety of optical wave guide microstructures by a direct write technique. Some of these applications from Melbourne, and elsewhere, are reviewed in the present paper.