The common FIB Workstation is a high resolution FE-SEM combined with a FIB Ga+ column plus a multi channel gas injection system: Pt, C, W and SiOx are some of the usual precursors for ion or electron induced deposition (FIBID/FEBID); and Fluorine or H2O are used for enhanced etching. It can be equipped with different detectors: Everhart-Thornley SE, In-lens SE detector, Backscattered Detector, EDX (for 2D and 3D reconstruction) or STEM among others.
The main FIB application is the site specific cross sectioning and SEM inspection on a wide variety of samples (electronics, ceramics, metallurgy, biology…) throgh its different detectors. Other current applications are 3D reconstruction and circuit editing and repair. Actually, due to its high performance and increasing number of accessories, different applications are arising continuously.
Another typical application for such systems is the preparation of lamellaes for TEM studies. The combination of Ion polishing at high and low energy (to avoid Ga contamination), a Nanomanipulator for lamellae extraction, the control of the lamellae thickness and STEM detector for quality imaging of the final lamella make this application the preferred technique in Materials Science for samples preparation for TEM analysis.
In TEM/Scanning TEM (STEM) high energy electrons incident on ultra-thin samples, allow imaging, diffraction, electron energy loss spectroscopy and chemical analysis of solid materials with a spatial resolution on the order of 1-2 Å. Samples must have a thickness of a few tens of nanometres and are prepared in sample preparation laboratory.
XPS is a surface spectroscopic technique for quantitative measurements of the elemental composition or stoichiometry and the chemical state of the present elements, like their oxidation state and chemical bonds. XPS is highly surface sensitive, giving chemical and binding energy information from the a narrow region close to the surface.
AFM is a surface sensitive technique permitting to obtain a microscopic image of the topography of a material surface and certain properties (like friction force, magnetization properties…). Typical lateral image sizes are within a range of only a few Nanometers to several Micrometers, and height changes of less than a Nanometer.
XAS is sensitive to the local bonding environment of the atom absorbing the X-rays, providing information on oxidation states, local orbital symmetry, molecular orientation and chemically selective density of states. It is widely used in molecular and condensed matter physics, material science, engineering, chemistry, earth science and biology.
PLD is widely used to grow thin films of complex oxides and other inorganic and organic materials. It is a simple and versatile technique based in the congruent ablation of a solid material irradiated by an ultraviolet laser.
