Dysprosium Liquid Metal Alloy Ion Source For Magnetic Nanostructures

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 μm-scale and below. Liquid Metal Alloy Ion Sources (LMAIS) represent an alternative to expand the FIB application fields beside all other source concepts. Especially ions from the rare earth (RE) element Dy is very interesting for local modification of magnetic properties like RE-induced damping in metallic alloys. So various alloys for source preparation were investigated. A promising solution was found in a Cu30Dy70 based LMAIS which should be introduced in more detail.