A scanning ion beam instrument equipped with a gas field ionization source (GFIS) has been commercialized, but only helium and neon are currently available as GFISs. The characteristics of krypton ion emission from a single atom tip (SAT) have not been reported yet. In this study, the characteristics of krypton ion emission were investigated by field ion microscopy. At 65 K, the krypton ion emission current reached approximately 40 pA, which is 1 order of magnitude higher than that at 130 K. As the krypton gas pressure was increased, the krypton ion current increased. At a pressure of 0.3 Pa, the emission current was anticipated to reach 200 pA, which may be high enough for nanofabrication. The variation of the krypton ion current was as low as 5% in one hour. We concluded that a krypton ion beam instrument equipped with a GFIS will be a powerful tool for nanofabrication.

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Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.

A simple measurement method of molecular relaxation in a gas by reconstructing acoustic velocity dispersion

A scanning ion beam instrument equipped with a gas field ionization source (GFIS) has been commercialized, but only helium and neon are currently available as GFISs. In this study, the characteristics of neon, argon, and krypton ion emissions from a single-atom tip are compared, specifically for faster fabrication by milling of a silicon sample. Although the boiling point of argon is about 87 K, our experiments on characterizing argon ion emission can be carried out at temperatures of about 50 K at an argon gas pressure lower than 0.1 Pa. Argon exhibits ion current characteristics, as a function of tip voltage, between those of neon and krypton. The value obtained by multiplying the ion emission current by the sputtering yield is suitable for a figure of merit (FOM) for faster fabrication. The FOM for argon is the highest among the three ion species. This value must be extensively evaluated from the viewpoint of practical nano-fabrication application. The instabilities of neon, argon, and krypton ion currents (3σ) become as low as 8% in 1 h, which is sufficient for fabrication applications. We conclude that an argon or krypton GFIS ion beam instrument will be a useful tool for nano-fabrication.