OPTIMIZATION OF EXPERIMENTAL OPERATING PARAMETERS FOR VERY HIGH-RESOLUTION FOCUSED ION-BEAM APPLICATIONS

We report an experimental procedure to optimize the current profile of a focused ion beam probe, with a special emphasis on high resolution applications. The optimized operating conditions are given for three s pecific cases: specimen thinning for electron microscopy, nanoetching, and nanolithography. We present high quality membranes for transmissi on electron microscopy, arrays of nanoholes with reproducible dimensio ns of 17 nm etched on a nickel membrane, and finally nanolithography o perations with a 10 nm resolution. Due to the conventional design of o ur focused ion beam system, the operating conditions that we have esta blished for each nanofabrication application, should be successfully a pplied to a wide variety of ion columns. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Soci ety.