FOCUSED ION-BEAM MACHINING AND DEPOSITION FOR NANOFABRICATION

Focused ion beam micromachining (FIBM) and focused ion beam deposition (FIBD) enable spatially selective, maskless, patterning and processin g of materials at extremely high levels of resolution. State-of-the-ar t focused ion beam (FIB) columns based on high brightness liquid metal ion source (LMIS) technology are capable of forming probes with dimen sions of order 10 nm with a lower limit on spot size set by the inhere nt energy spread of the LMIS and the chromatic aberration of ion optic al systems. The combination of high lateral and depth resolution make FIBM and FIBD powerful tools for nanotechnology applications. In this paper we present some methods of controlling FIBM and FIBD processes f or nanofabrication purposes and discuss their limitations.