Boron liquid metal alloy ion sources for special focused ion beam applications

Abstract

Focused Ion Beam (FIB) processing has been established as a well-suited and promising technique in R&D in nearly all fields of nanotechnology for patterning and prototyping on the micro and nanometer scale and below. Among other concepts, liquid metal alloy ion sources (LMAIS) are one of the alternatives to conventional gallium beams to extend the FIB application field. To meet the rising demand for light ions, different boron containing alloys were investigated in this work. A promising solution was found in a Co31Nd64B5 based LMAIS which will be introduced in more detail. Besides cobalt as a ferromagnetic element and the rare earth element neodymium, boron in particular is of interest for special FIB applications like local p-type doping, for which resolution of about 30 nm has been achieved so far.