Removal of Surface Damage from Focused Ion Beam using Plasma Cleaner

Abstract

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

Evidence for a Critical Amorphization Thickness Limit of Ga+ Ion Bombardment in Si

“…Thus, 2 keV polishing is sufficiently low in energy to yield the least FIB damage in Si and would also provide for better imaging resolution and placement of the ion beam compared to 1 keV. The residual FIB damage could easily be removed in a plasma cleaning operation prior to (S)TEM analysis [1,4]. In addition, Ga + bombardment at 700 eV and 500 eV shows evidence of a growing Garich deposition layer which is probably a result of the sputter yield dropping below a value of 1 at these low energies.…”