A solitary software for a broad selection of programs

Processing products on the nanoscale, developing prototypes for microelectronics or analyzing biological samples: The array of purposes for finely focused ion beams is large. Specialists from the EU collaboration Suit4NANO have now reviewed the quite a few choices and produced a roadmap for the future.

The posting, released in Applied Physics Testimonials, is aimed at pupils, users from industry and science as well as research policy makers.

“We understood that concentrated ion beams can be utilized in many distinct means, and we considered we had a fantastic overview at the start off of the undertaking. But then we found out that there are numerous far more purposes than we thought. In numerous publications, the use of targeted ion beams is not even explicitly stated, but is concealed in the approaches area,” says Dr. Katja Höflich, physicist at the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), who coordinated the extensive report.

“It was detective function. In unique, we located operate from the 1960s and 1970s that was in advance of its time and unjustly forgotten. Even right now, they nonetheless deliver important insights.”

The report supplies an overview of the present-day point out of centered ion beam (FIB) technological know-how, its purposes with lots of examples, the most important machines developments and foreseeable future prospective clients.

“We needed to present a reference perform that is beneficial for academic investigate and industrial R&D departments, but also allows exploration administration to locate their way in this area,” suggests Dr. Gregor Hlawacek, group chief at the Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Supplies Analysis at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). Hlawacek prospects the In shape4NANO challenge, an EU venture on FIB technologies, in which the authors of the report are associated.

From basic research to the concluded ingredient

FIB instruments use a focused ion beam of usually two to 30 kiloelectronvolts (keV). With its small diameter in the nanometer and sub-nanometer variety, these an ion beam scans the sample and can improve its floor with nanometer precision. FIB devices are a common instrument for analysis, maskless local product modification and speedy prototyping of microelectronic components. The first FIB devices were used in the semiconductor industry to appropriate photomasks with targeted gallium ions. Right now, FIB devices are accessible with several distinct types of ions.

An crucial software is the planning of samples for significant-resolution, nanometer-precision imaging in the electron microscope. FIB approaches have also been utilized in the daily life sciences, for case in point to assess and graphic micro-organisms and viruses with FIB-dependent tomography, delivering deep insights into microscopic buildings and their functionality.

FIB devices are constantly evolving to other energies, heavier ions and new abilities, these kinds of as the spatially solved technology of solitary atomic problems in in any other case fantastic crystals. Such FIB processing of resources and factors has massive opportunity in quantum and info technological know-how. The vary of applications, from essential investigate to the finished system, from physics, supplies science and chemistry to lifetime sciences and even archaeology, is unquestionably unique.

“We hope that this roadmap will encourage scientific and technological breakthroughs and act as an incubator for foreseeable future developments,” claims Gregor Hlawacek.