This article considers the fundamentals of what happens in a solid when it is impacted by a medium-energy gallium ion. The study of the ion/sample interaction at the nanometer scale is applicable to most focused ion beam (FIB)–based work even if the FIB/sample interaction is only a step in the process, for example, micromachining or microelectronics device processing. Whereas the objective in other articles in this issue is to use the FIB tool to characterize a material or to machine a device or transmission electron microscopy sample, the goal of the FIB in this article is to have the FIB/sample interaction itself become the product. To that end, the FIB/sample interaction is considered in three categories according to geometry: below, at, and above the surface. First, the FIB ions can penetrate the top atom layer(s) and interact below the surface. Ion implantation and ion damage on flat surfaces have been comprehensively examined; however, FIB applications require the further investigation of high doses in three-dimensional profiles. Second, the ions can interact at the surface, where a morphological instability can lead to ripples and surface self-organization, which can depend on boundary conditions for site-specific and compound FIB processing. Third, the FIB may interact above the surface (and/or produce secondary particles that interact above the surface). Such ion beam–assisted deposition, FIB–CVD (chemical vapor deposition), offers an elaborate complexity in three dimensions with an FIB using a gas injection system. At the nanometer scale, these three regimes—below, at, and above the surface—can require an interdependent understanding to be judiciously controlled by the FIB.
It is well established that when energetic ions are moving in crystals, they may penetrate much deeper if they happen to be directed in some specific crystal directions. This 'channeling' effect is utilized for instance in certain ion beam analysis methods and has been described by analytical theories and atomistic computer simulations. However, there have been very few systematic studies of channeling in directions other than the principal low-index ones. We present here a molecular dynamics-based approach to calculate ion channeling systematically over all crystal directions, providing ion 'channeling maps' that easily show in which directions channeling is expected. The results show that channeling effects can be quite significant even at energies below 1 keV, and that in many cases, significant planar channeling occurs also in a wide range of crystal directions between the low-index principal ones. In all of the cases studied, a large fraction (∼20-60%) of all crystal directions show channeling. A practical implication of this is that modern experiments on randomly oriented nanostructures will have a large probability of channeling. It also means that when ion irradiations are carried out on polycrystalline samples, channeling effects on the results cannot a priori be assumed to be negligible. The maps allow for easy selection of good 'nonchanneling' directions in experiments or alternatively finding wide channels for beneficial uses of channeling. We implement channeling theory to also give the fraction of channeling directions in a manner directly comparable to the simulations. The comparison shows good qualitative agreement. In particular, channeling theory is very good at predicting which channels are active at a given energy. This is true down to sub-keV energies, provided the penetration depth is not too small.
An approach to the profile extraction of nanoscale focused ion beams is presented. It is based on contour profiling of dots patterned at various ion doses by focused ion beam exposure. While the surface contour depends on the spatial variation of the beam-solid interaction, at no single ion dose the contour reflects the current density profile of the beam itself, due to effects such as target swelling, redeposition, and angle-dependent sputtering yield. Instead, we monitor the surface deviation relative to the unimplanted case as a function of dose for the radial positions of interest, and determine scaling factors for the dose such that the scaled curves coincide for all radial positions in the regions of small milling depths. We apply the method to beam shape determination of 10 and 50 keV focused ion beams using silicon and GaAs as targets and atomic force microscopy as a contour profiling technique. Despite the different irradiation response of silicon and GaAs, the beam profiles evaluated on these substrate materials agree excellently, which demonstrates that our approach is substrate independent. It allows profile extractions of nanoscale focused ion beams with high accuracy and high sensitivity even in the tails of the beams.
2D focused ion beam simulation is only capable of simulating the topography where the surface shape does not change along the third dimension, both in the final result and during processing. In this paper we show that a 3D topography forms under the beam even though the variation in the final result along the third direction is small. We present the code AMADEUS 3D (advanced modelling and design environment for sputter processes), which is capable of simulating the surface topography in 3D space including angle-dependent sputtering and redeposition. The surface is represented by a structured or unstructured grid, and the nodes are moved according to the calculated sputtering and redeposition fluxes. In addition, experiments have been performed on nanodot formation and box milling for a case where a 3D temporary topography forms. The excellent agreement validates the code and shows the completeness of the model.
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