Nanofabrication Using Focused Ion Beam

Abstract

This chapter presents various nanofabrication possibilities using focused ion beam (FIB) to realize 3-D nanostructures on the surfaces. The focused ion beam (FIB) is a beam of energetic ions that can be focused at the nanometer scale. In the FIB system, the ion column is generally supplemented with an electron column as a dual-beam focused ion beam/scanning electron microscope (FIB/SEM) system for simultaneous imaging during FIB operations. Such a nanoscale-focused beam opens up avenues for microstructure characterization and micro/nanofabrication via milling and deposition. An overview of nanomachining by the FIB system with insights into the modeling of FIB-induced sputtering processes along with the influence of beam parameters are discussed. FIB milling (i.e., material removal by FIB-induced sputtering) and FIB-chemical vapor deposition (FIB-CVD) deposition (i.e., material deposition by FIB-induced site-specific chemical reactions) strategies are discussed. In addition, FIB irradiation-driven surface self-organization processes are capable of realizing interesting surface structures nanoripples, nanoscale polygons, and complex 3-D architectures. The nanoscale control on the morphologies and periodicity of the self-organized structures can be attained by the surface type and operating conditions of the FIB system. Due to these possibilities of a wide range of ion–solid interactions which enable FIB to induce milling, deposition, or self-organized nanostructuring on the materials, the FIB system can be called a multipurpose tool.