SBIR Phase II: Low Temperature Ion Source for High-Brightness Focused Ion Beams

SBIR 第二阶段：用于高亮度聚焦离子束的低温离子源

• 批准号: 1353447
• 负责人: Brenton Knuffman
• 金额: $ 75万
• 依托单位: zeroK NanoTech Corporation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-03-15 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1353447&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Low; Temperature

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop low-temperature ion source (LoTIS) technology which uses laser-cooling to create a beam of Cs+ ions with high brightness and low energy spread. This technology will extend the utility of focused ion beam (FIB) instrumentation that is widely used for nanometer-scale precision machining tasks; it accomplishes this by addressing shortcomings in precision and speed afforded by commercially available ion sources. One primary research aim of this project is the measurement of a key ion source performance metric, namely brightness, in order to compare its value to that of incumbent ion source technologies. LoTIS may have a brightness that is tenfold to one hundred-fold larger than the industry standard liquid metal ion source. An ion source with such an improved brightness would enable superior machining precision at higher speeds over a broader range of ion beam operating energies.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to develop improved FIB instrumentation to empower users in a variety of research fields and industrial applications, including nanotechnology, biotechnology, semiconductor manufacturing, and energy exploration. In particular, nanomachining applications, including integrated circuit edit and rapid prototyping of nanoscale device structures, are increasingly limited by the precision afforded by current ion source technology, and the users in these areas are in need of higher-precision FIBs. FIBs employed for transmission electron microscope lamellae preparation require less precision but could benefit from reduced subsurface ion damage provided by this method, through the use of Cs+ ions at low energy. A bright source of Cs+ ions could also dramatically improve the resolution and throughput for spatially-resolved elemental mapping in secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) applications. This technique represents an order-of-magnitude ion source performance improvement that will address FIB user needs across a wide spectrum of scientific and commercial applications.

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目将开发低温离子源(LOTIS)技术，该技术使用激光冷却来产生具有高亮度和低能量扩散的Cs+离子束。这项技术将扩展被广泛用于纳米级精密加工任务的聚焦离子束(FIB)仪器的用途；它通过解决商业可用离子源在精度和速度方面的缺陷来实现这一点。该项目的一个主要研究目标是测量一个关键的离子源性能指标，即亮度，以便将其价值与现有离子源技术的价值进行比较。LOTIS的亮度可能比工业标准液态金属离子源大10到100倍。具有如此高亮度的离子源将在更广泛的离子束工作能量范围内以更高的速度实现更高的加工精度。该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发改进的FIB仪器，使用户能够在各种研究领域和工业应用中使用，包括纳米技术、生物技术、半导体制造和能源勘探。特别是，纳米加工应用，包括集成电路编辑和纳米级器件结构的快速成型，越来越受到当前离子源技术所提供的精度的限制，而这些领域的用户需要更高精度的光纤。用于制备透射电子显微镜薄片的光纤对精度要求较低，但可以通过在低能量下使用Cs+离子来减少这种方法提供的亚表面离子损伤。在二次离子质谱仪(SIMS)应用中，明亮的Cs+离子源还可以显著提高空间分辨元素图谱的分辨率和吞吐量。这项技术代表了离子源性能的数量级改进，将满足FIB用户在广泛的科学和商业应用中的需求。