ALIS Corporation has developed a new helium ion microscope which has many advantages over both traditional scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) and focused ion beams (FIBs). This new technology is expected to produce an ultimate focused spot size of 0.25nm. This high resolution is attributed to the high source brightness (B>4×109A∕cm2sr), low energy spread (ΔE∕E∼2×10−5), and small diffraction effects (λ∼80fm). The interaction of helium ions with matter offers several valuable contrast mechanisms and a surface interaction volume which is much smaller than a SEM or conventional FIB.

In order to get high resolution images from any scanning beam microscope one must be able to produce a sufficiently small probe, have a small interaction volume in the substrate and have an abundance of information-rich particles to collect to create the image. A typical scanning electron microscope is able to meet all of these requirements to some degree. However, a helium ion microscope based on a Gas Field Ion Source (GFIS) has significant advantages over the SEM in all three categories.

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Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, July 30 – August 3, 2005