Focused Ion Beam Enabled Analysis of Nanocomposite and Nanostructured Soft Materials

Focused Ion Beam Lithography

Extraction and Analysis of Microcrater Residues Using Focused Ion Beam

Introduction: Microcraters within Stardust aluminium foils have the potential to trap impact residues – probably molten or partially vapourised – of comet Wild 2 material [1]. Thus, in addition to the cometary particles captured by aerogel, microcraters may also reveal compositional information. In anticipation of this we have prepared a technique using focused ion beam microscopy to extract an...

Optical performance investigation of focused ion beam nanostructured integrated Fabry-Perot microcavities in Al2O3

Focused ion beam (FIB) milling is an emerging technology that enables fast, reliable and well-controlled nanometer-size feature definition. Since the method involves physical removal of material by a beam of ions, the technique can be adapted and optimized almost for any material system. Recently we have reported on an optimized approach of FIB nano-structuring, which enabled patterning of DBR ...

Minimization of focused ion beam damage in nanostructured polymer thin films.

Focused ion beam (FIB) instruments have proven to be an invaluable tool for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) sample preparation. FIBs enable relatively easy and site-specific cross-sectioning of different classes of materials. However, damage mechanisms due to ion bombardment and possible beam heating effects in materials limit the usefulness of FIBs. Materials with adequate heat conducti...

Focused Ion Beam Microscopy and Micromachining

The FIB Instrument The basic functions of the FIB, namely, imaging and sputtering with an ion beam, require a highly focused beam. A consistent tenet of any focused beam is that the smaller the effective source size, the more current that can be focused to a point. Unlike the broad ion beams generated from plasma sources, high-resolution ion beams are defined by the use of a field ionization so...