Focused Ion Beams and Some Selected Applications

Abstract

Abstract Focused ion beams (FIBs) have been widely used for micro‐ and nanofabrication, failure analysis, and preparation of research prototypes. This article gives the reader a first and short introduction to the field of FIBs with some basics of FIB generation and an impression of a variety of main established applications as well as select new directions. We describe the design and the principles of functionality of common and new versions of FIB systems generated with different types of ion sources. For more details and further studies, some references to excellent review articles and books are given, which contain further references. An FIB system consists of a source emitting ions from a very small region, an ion optical system for focusing a spot down to a few nm and a scan unit for controlled movement of the focused beam in lateral directions. The ion beam interaction with the target material modifies its surface properties or surface structure by processes such as ion implantation, ion milling, ion‐beam induced etching, and deposition. The FIB offers the opportunity to generate structures in nanometer dimension with a high accuracy by maskless, direct writing with the focused beam. In this article, we give an overview of selected applications. The FIB alone, and moreover combined with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) in one vacuum chamber, implemented with several different detectors, opens many fields of applications, such as imaging, analytics, tomography, preparation and fabrication of samples and tools.