Focused Ion Beam Sputtering of Silicon and Related Materials

The impressive development of focused ion beam (FIB) systems from the laboratory level to high performance industrial machines during the last twenty years is briefly reported. The design and the functional principle of a liquid metal ion source as well as a FIB column are described. Main application fields of the FIB technology are stoichiometric writing implantation or ion milling which are dominated by the sputtering effect. The FIB is a very suitable tool for sputtering of well defined holes which can easily be analysed by surface profiling. By applying this volume loss method the sputtering yields and milling rates of crystalline, amorphous, and poly-silicon, as well as SiO2, CVD- and high pressure (HP) - diamond and 6H:SiC were investigated for 35 and 70 keV Co, Ga, Ge, Nd and Au ions. For crystalline silicon and 6H:SiC targets, the sputtering yield was determined as a function of the incident angle of the ions and the substrate temperature. In addition, the influence of the pixel dwell time on the erosion process in the case of high dose cobalt implantation was investigated. The experimental obtained yield data are compared with calculated values using different known models.