Focused ion beam micromachining of three-dimensional structures and three-dimensional reconstruction to assess their shape

Abstract

Focused ion beam (FIB) systems are ideal tools for micromachining three-dimensional structures. To mill a shape correctly numerous factors, such as the shape of the ion beam and the re-deposition of the sputtered materials have to be accounted for during the ion milling. In order to alter the ion milling process to account for these and other factors, the shape of the milled structure and how it differs to the intended shape has to be determined. For a non-symmetrical structure with high depth-to-width aspect ratios a cross-section through its centre, prepared using the FIB system, will not be representative and atomic force microscopy cannot be used because of the geometry of the atomic force microscope's tip. Here, the use of three-dimensional reconstruction from a sequential set of FIB-prepared two-dimensional cross-sections milled through a structure to determine its shape is outlined.

Advances in engineered surfaces for functional performance

“…17 and 18 show the inkjet printing of a steel surface with parallel gaps and in multi-steps with chevron-like gaps, respectively. Electrical discharge texturing (EDT) [11,181] Micro EDM [46] Electrical beam texturing (EBT) [64] Ion beam texturing (IBT) [54,142] Chemical etching…”

Focused ion beams techniques for nanomaterials characterization

“…8). The technique has been used to determine the grain shape in extruded Al (Inkson et al, 2001), the sidewall profile in photonic structures (Langford et al, 2002a), and to map cracks in alumina (Wu et al, 2003). It has also been combined with SIMS (Dunn and Hull, 1999) and auger (Sakamoto et al, 1998) to chemically map copper interconnects.…”

Design criteria of neuron/electrode interface. The focused ion beam technology as an analytical method to investigate the effect of electrode surface morphology on neurocompatibility

“…In fact, in these cases, the main limitation is the re-deposition of sputtered material. Sputtered atoms are re-deposited around the patterns and they produce a distortion of pattern profiles and of the real sputtering rate (Langford et al, 2002;Tseng et al, 2005). An example of FIB surface modification is shown in Fig.…”