Ionoluminescence (IL) is the emission of light from a material due to excitation by an ion beam. In this work, a helium ion microscope (HIM) has been used in conjunction with a luminescence detection system to characterize IL from materials in an analogous way to how cathodoluminescence (CL) is characterized in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). A survey of the helium ion beam induced IL characteristics, including images and spectra, of a variety of materials known to exhibit CL in an SEM is presented. Direct bandgap semiconductors that luminesce strongly in the SEM, are found not do so in the HIM, possibly due to defect-related non-radiative pathways created by the ion beam. Other materials do, however, exhibit IL, including a cerium-doped garnet sample, quantum dots and rare earth doped LaPO 4 nanocrystals. These emissions are a result of transitions between f electron states or transitions across size dependent band gaps. In all these samples, IL is found to decay with exposure to the beam, fitting well to double exponential functions. In an exploration of the potential of this technique for biological tagging applications, imaging with the IL emitted by rare earth doped LaPO 4 nanocrystals, simultaneously with secondary electron imaging, is demonstrated at a range of magnifications.

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Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.