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Atomic-scale effects behind structural instabilities in Si lamellae during ion beam thinning

Autor(en)

E. Holmström, J. Kotakoski, L. Lechner, U. Kaiser, K. Nordlund

Abstrakt

The rise of nanotechnology has created an ever-increasing need to probe

structures on the atomic scale, to which transmission electron

microscopy has largely been the answer. Currently, the only way to

efficiently thin arbitrary bulk samples into thin lamellae in

preparation for this technique is to use a focused ion beam (FIB).

Unfortunately, the established FIB thinning method is limited to

producing samples of thickness above ˜20 nm. Using atomistic

simulations alongside experiments, we show that this is due to effects

from finite ion beam sharpness at low milling energies combined with

atomic-scale effects at high energies which lead to shrinkage of the

lamella. Specifically, we show that attaining thickness below 26 nm

using a milling energy of 30 keV is fundamentally prevented by atomistic

effects at the top edge of the lamella. Our results also explain the

success of a recently proposed alternative FIB thinning method, which is

free of the limitations of the conventional approach due to the absence

of these physical processes.

Organisation(en)

Physik Nanostrukturierter Materialien

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Helsinki, Universität Ulm

Journal

AIP Advances

Band

ISSN

2158-3226

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3698411

Publikationsdatum

2012

Peer-reviewed

ÖFOS 2012

103009 Festkörperphysik, 103018 Materialphysik

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