UCLA Engineering
Obtains a Dual-Beam Focused Ion Beam/Scanning Electron Microscope
system
Advanced Scientific Instrument Allows Nanofabrication and Characterization
Figures
1 and 2. FIB examples. The scale bar on both images is 1 µm.
See below for details.
The UCLA Department of Materials
Science and Engineering has obtained a dual-beam focused ion
beam (FIB) - scanning electron microscope (SEM) system –
a very advanced imaging and nanomanufacturing instrument that
can create, modify, and image complex structures that are a
few tens of nanometers in size.
A focused ion beam (FIB) system
uses ions – positively charged atoms – to create
three-dimensional structures through the removal (or addition)
of material in a precise and highly controlled manner down to
nanometer scales. Much like carving in stone, this system allows
users to manipulate and/or fabricate complex shapes and sizes.
This system equipped with a SEM, which uses electrons to "see"
surfaces of materials with nanometer resolution, enables visualization
of as-fabricated structures.
“This newly acquired instrument
will allow researchers, both here at UCLA and outside, to create
new complex nanostructures of a wide variety of materials,”
said Suneel Kodambaka, assistant professor of materials science
and engineering. “Here at the Department of Materials
Science and Engineering, we are very excited about the prospects
of using this instrument for several advanced research projects.
Researchers in academia and in industry have already found the
FIB-SEM to be a valuable tool for their work and we are pleased
that it is available as a user facility."
figure 3. see below for details
Sergey Prikhodko, staff scientist
in Materials Science and Engineering, is in-charge of the operation
and maintenance of the dual-beam SEM/FIB system, which will
be under the supervision of Steve Franz, manager of the Nanoelectronics
Research Facility.
* See the Nanolab’s website for details:
http://www.nanolab.ucla.edu/
* To view a step-by-step transmission electron microscope sample
preparation of a carbon fiber reinforced Zr-ZrC matrix composite,
using the FIB-SEM,
click here.
From materials science and engineering professor Jenn-Minn Yang's
research group. Preparation by Noah Bodzin of the UCLA Department
of Physics and Sergey Prikhodko of Materials Science and Engineering.
FIGURES
Figure 1 and 2 above: The use
of ions allows a FIB system to create three-dimensional structures
through the removal of material by sputtering in a precise and
highly controlled manner down to nanometer scales. Much like
carving in stone, this system allows users to determine shapes
and depth of their cuts. Figures 1 and 2 shows structures fabricated
using a Nova 600 on Si wafer by Noah Bodzin. The size of the
pitch on Figure 2 is 50 nm.
Figure
3 (above) and figures 4 and 5 (below): The
research group of Sakhrat Khizroev, assistant professor of electrical
engineering at UC Riverside, used FIB for rapid prototyping
of nanomagnetic devices to enable next-generation information
storage and logic technologies as well as medicine and energy
harvesting related applications. Figure 3 shows
a FIB fabricated magnetic force microscopy (MFM) tip in the
form of a point dipole deposited on the tip of a silicon etched
probe.
Figure 4 shows nanoscale apertures fabricated using Nova 600
at UCLA by Andrey Lavrenov for the on-going study of heat-assisting
magnetic recording (HAMR) suitable for areal densities above
10 terabit/In2. The set of apertures is milled into a 150 nm
thick aluminum film sputtered on the emitting edge of a semiconducting
diode. Figure 5 shows FIB-fabricated patterned media with a
bit side of 50 nm milled into 50-nm thick magnetic media.
figure 4
Figure 5
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04/09/08
