Focused Ion Beam
Focused Ion Beam
Focused ion beam (FIB) instrument is almost identical to the scanning electron microscope (SEM), but instead of electrons it uses ions that interact with the sample. Ions are heavier than electrons and can eject atoms from the sample surface via a sputtering process. The ion beam can be controlled with a nanometric precision and thus, FIB instrument can directly modify the sample surface to perform nano-lithography, selective milling and ion-beam assisted deposition, 3D tomography, TEM lamella preparation, microfabrication and elemental analysis. Our equipment is a Neon40 Crossbeam™ workstation acquired from Carl Zeiss and equipped with a field emission electron column, gallium ion beam column and gas injection system for gas assisted deposition and milling.
Key features
- CANION31 Gallium FIB column: 1 pA - 20 nA, 5-30 kV, 7 nm resolution
- GEMINI SEM column with (Shottky-FE) gun: 4 pA-20 nA, 0.1-30 kV, 1.1 nm resolution at 20 kV
- BSE, SE, SE in-lens & STEM detectors
- Gas Injection System (Pt, C, SiO2, H2O, XeF6) for deposition and selective milling
- Super-eucentric 6-axes sample stage
- In-chamber micro-manipulator for TEM lamellae preparation
- EDS (Ultim® Max SDD detector, 40 mm2) for micro-elemental analysis, AZtec software for data acquisition and processing
- Zeiss ATLAS 5 software for large scale data acquisition, 3D tomography and nano-patterning

















Contact
In order to book the equipment, please contact Trifon Trifonov (tecnics.multiescala@upc.edu).
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