Helium Ion Microscope-Assisted Nanomachining of Resonant Nanostrings

Helium ion microscopy has recently emerged as a potent tool for the in-situ modification and imaging of nanoscale devices. For example; finely focused helium ion beams have been used for the milling of pores in suspended structures. We here report the use of helium ion milling for the post-fabrication modification of nanostrings machined from an amorphous SiCN material. The modification consisted of milling linear arrays of holes along the length of nanostrings. This milling results in a slight decrease of resonant frequency while increasing the surface to volume ratio of the device. The frequency decrease is attributed to a reduction of the effective Young's modulus of the string, which in turn reduces the tension the string is under. Such experimental observations are supported by the finite element analysis of milled and non-milled strings.