Performance investigation of a focused ion beam for sputter deposition

Abstract

Recently, focused ion beam sources have been widely used in various film deposition. This paper introduces the performance investigation of a focused ion beam source for sputter deposition. A 3.5-cm-diam ion source was used in the experiments. The results of the tests show that (1) at given ion beam energy there is an optimum value of ion beam current which gives the maximum value of ion beam current density; (2) at higher beam energy the peak of ion beam current density is higher and is obtained at larger beam current; (3) the ion beam current density increases with increasing magnetic flux density but there is an optimum value of magnetic flux density, and (4) the ion beam current density increases with increasing discharge voltage and gas flow rate, decreases with increasing accelerator voltage. Finally, these results are analyzed and discussed.