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.