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

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将研究低温离子源(LOTIS)技术的商业可行性，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。这项技术可以通过解决商业离子源技术在精度和速度方面的不足，扩大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。本项目的研究目的是表征该技术的关键离子源性能指标-亮度和能量扩散，以便在重要应用领域与现有的离子源技术进行比较。相对于行业标准的液态金属离子源，这项技术可以将亮度提高约10倍至100倍，并将能量分布减少5倍。这些改进的离子源特性将使在更大范围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，这些领域的用户需要更高精度的FIB解决方案。用于制备透射电子显微镜薄片的光纤对精度要求较低，但通过在低能量下使用Cs+离子，可以受益于LOTIS提供的减少亚表面离子损害。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。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will investigate the commercial feasibility of 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 could extend the utility of focused ion beam (FIB) instrumentation that is widely used for nanometer-scale precision machining tasks by addressing shortcomings in precision and speed afforded by commercially available ion source technology. The research aims of this project are the characterization of key ion source performance metrics - brightness and energy spread - of this technology, in order to compare it to incumbent ion source technologies in important application segments. Relative to the industry standard liquid metal ion source, this technology could provide an estimated tenfold to hundredfold increase in brightness and a fivefold reduction in energy spread. These improved ion source characteristics 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 enable 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 the current ion source technology, and the users in these areas are in need of higher-precision FIB solutions. FIBs employed for transmission electron microscope lamellae preparation require less precision but could benefit from reduced subsurface ion damage provided by LoTIS, 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.