Abstract
Article history: This study researched the structure of the source of an ion milling machine used to fabricate a scanning electron microscope (SEM) sample. An ion source is used to mill out samples of over 1 mm dimension using a broad ion beam to generate plasma between the anode and cathode using a permanent magnet. To mill the sample in the vacuum chamber, the ion source should be greater than 6 kV for a positive ion current over 200 μA. To discover the optimum operating conditions for the ion miller, the diameter of the extractor, anode shape, and strength of the permanent magnet were varied in the experiments. A silicon wafer was used as the sample. The sputter yield was measured on the milled surface, which was analyzed using the SEM. The wafer was milled by injecting 1 sccm of argon gas into the 0.5 mTorr vacuum chamber.
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