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Related Experiment Videos

Reducing focused ion beam damage to transmission electron microscopy samples.

Naoko I Kato1

  • 1Analytical Services, Quality Engineering, ITES Co., Ltd., Yasu-city, Shiga 520-2392, Japan. naokoik@jp.ibm.com

Journal of Electron Microscopy
|December 8, 2004
PubMed
Summary

Focused ion beam (FIB) milling for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) creates surface damage on silicon semiconductors. Low-energy FIB and argon broad ion beam (BIB) cleaning are effective damage reduction techniques.

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Area of Science:

  • Materials Science
  • Nanotechnology
  • Semiconductor Physics

Background:

  • Focused Ion Beam (FIB) is crucial for preparing samples for Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM).
  • FIB milling can induce significant beam-induced damage and artifacts, degrading TEM resolution.
  • This damage is particularly problematic for high-resolution analysis of silicon semiconductor devices.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the characteristics and depth of beam-induced damage in silicon samples prepared using FIB.
  • To review and evaluate various techniques for reducing FIB-induced damage.
  • To identify the most effective methods for minimizing artifacts in FIB-prepared silicon samples for TEM.

Main Methods:

  • Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) observations of cross-sections of FIB-milled silicon samples.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Review of experimental and calculated data on FIB damage depths.
  • Evaluation of damage reduction techniques including gas-assisted etching, low-energy FIB, wet/dry etching, and broad ion beam (BIB) milling.

    • Main Results:

    • FIB milling typically creates a 20-30 nm thick amorphous layer on silicon samples with 30 keV FIB.
    • This damage depth is often unacceptable for modern silicon devices with feature sizes below 250 nm.
    • Several damage reduction techniques were assessed for their effectiveness on silicon devices.

    Conclusions:

    • Low-energy FIB milling significantly reduces surface damage.
    • Cleaning FIB-prepared cross-sections using argon broad ion beam (BIB) milling is a highly efficient damage reduction method.
    • The combination of low-energy FIB and BIB cleaning offers a promising approach for high-quality TEM sample preparation of silicon devices.