Vacuum 111 (2015) 166e169

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Vacuum
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/vacuum

Rapid communication

High speed micro-fabrication using inductively coupled plasma ion

source based focused ion beam system
Ranjini Menon, P.Y. Nabhiraj*
Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Sector-1, Block-AF, Bidhan Nagar, Kolkata, 700064, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A compact inductively coupled plasma ion source based focused ion beam system (ICP-FIB), capable of
Received 18 August 2014 producing intense FIB of gaseous elements is developed. Ar and Xe ion beams of 20e4700 nA are focused
Received in revised form to spot sizes in the range of 2e30 mm. Experiments using Ar and Xe ion beams of a few microamperes
23 September 2014
showed milling speeds that are 25e150 times higher than that of a conventional FIB. Milling of micro-
Accepted 24 October 2014
Available online 31 October 2014
apertures in less than 100 s through 100 mm thick Ta and Mo foils and in less than 10 s through
12 mm gold and 25 mm aluminum foils is demonstrated. In this article, the potential of ICP-FIB in high
speed milling of micro apertures and large scale micro patterns are presented. Also the possibility of high
Keywords:
FIB
speed synthesis of nano-pores with tunable pore sizes is discussed.
Microfabrication © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Ion beam milling
Milling rate
Micro apertures

Due to the advent of large number of microdevices in various
advanced technological fields, FIB technology has found its place in
the realms beyond the conventional applications. Besides synthesis
of nanoscale structures/patterns, conventional FIB systems are very
often being used to synthesize micro and macro patterns where
volumes of several million mm3 are to be milled [1e4]. However,
conventional FIB systems based on liquid metal ion source (LMIS-
FIB) would take prohibitively long time to mill large volumes due to
availability of only a few nA current. The best reported milling rate
of LMIS-FIB is not more than 5e10 mm3/s on most of the materials
and due to this low throughput, it is mostly restricted to the ap-
plications of high cost. In addition, the LMIS-FIB causes contami-
nation by metallic ions on the milled surfaces. However, till today,
LMIS-FIB is the best system for milling in nanoscales. In order to
overcome the limitations of low throughput and contamination,
authors developed ICP-FIB which is capable of focusing three order
larger currents of ion beams of inert gases into spot size of few
micrometers [5]. Efforts are underway to further reduce the spot
size to submicron sizes. Smith et al. have demonstrated submicron
size beams of 30 keV energy from similar system [6]. The authors
have demonstrated focusing of 10 keV Xe ion beams with currents
1 mA and 2 mA into 4 mm and 7.5 mm respectively, while similar
currents of 30 keV Ga ions, if available from LMIS, cannot be focused
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 3323183201, þ91 3323183287.
E-mail address: npy@vecc.gov.in (P.Y. Nabhiraj).
to sizes less than 200 mm spot size. The high current capability of
ICP-FIB is due to high angular current density (JU) of the ion beam
extracted from ICP ion source. Experiments have shown that the
ICP ion source is capable of producing ion beam of various gaseous
elements with JU of three orders higher than that of various ion
beams from LMIS [7]. Since milling rates are directly proportional to
the available ion current in the focused spot, this newly developed
ICP-FIB has superior performance in FIB applications that are
beyond the capability of LMIS-FIB systems such as rapid milling of
large volumes of material without contaminating the milled sur-
faces. In addition, the ICP-FIB has advantage of focusing ions of all
the gaseous elements and in particular xenon ions which are inert
and twice heavier than gallium ions. Comparison of the perfor-
mances of Ga LMIS-FIB and Xe ICP-FIB with same energy of ions
(30 keV), it can be shown that the milling rates of ICP-FIB can be at
least 50 times higher due to availability of higher current. Fabri-
cation of devices such as micron size SAW devices [8], micro elec-
trodes for plasma generation [9], nano and micro groves,
micropillars [10], microfluidic channels [11] [12], micro molds/mi-
cro replication tools [13], micro-coils for magnetic actuators [14],
microsize plasma chips [15], mechanical micro-tools [3,2,16],
beams, cantilevers, nozzles, vacuum microelectronics devices, fine
leakage controls in vacuum technology etc need removal of large
volume and currently they are being fabricated using conventional
microfabrication techniques. The high milling rates of the newly
developed ICP-FIB enables it to be used in rapid fabrication of the
some of the above devices by direct-write method and some of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vacuum.2014.10.014
0042-207X/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 R. Menon, P.Y. Nabhiraj / Vacuum 111 (2015) 166e169
them by eliminating several steps followed in conventional
processes.
In this article, a set of experiments are presented to evaluate the
milling rates and throughput of ICP-FIB on Si, Al, Au, Cu which are
commonly used in micro-devices and Ta, Mo and WC which are
hard and high temperature materials. Experiments to demonstrate
the high throughput capability of ICP-FIB in fabrication of micro-
apertures and large scale micro-patterns are also presented. To
the best of our knowledge the milling rates of materials by gaseous
ion beams from ICP-FIB system have not been reported so far.
The ICP-FIB system and characteristics of the ion source which is
used to carry out the experiments in this article are presented in
publications by the authors [5,7,17,18]. A two lens focusing column
is employed to focus the beam at a working distance of about 2 mm.
Ion beams of various gases, in the range of 20e4700 nA could be
focused to spot sizes in the range of 2e30 mm and current density as
high as 4.5 A/cm2 could be achieved for certain range of spot sizes.
Specimen to be milled and beam profile measurement instru-
mentation are installed downstream of the last lens at 2 mm
working distance. Further downstream, a secondary electron sup-
pressed Faraday cup is installed to measure the beam current.
Each sample to be milled was cut into small flat piece of area of a
few square centimeters assembled on a ring shaped sample holder
which inturn is placed on translation stage. Ring shaped sample
holder facilitates transmission of ion beam through the aperture
milled in the sample by focused ion beam and gets registered onto
the Faraday cup. An application written in LabView measures the
time taken to create an aperture i. e, the elapsed time from the time
of incidence of the beam on the sample to the time of first regis-
tration of smallest measurable current on Faraday cup. A realtime
graph of Faraday cup current with time is plotted with the sampling
rate of one data per second. Initial experiments were carried out
using argon ion beam focused onto 60 mm thick free standing
copper foil. Fig. 1 shows the milling characteristics of 60 mm thick
copper by argon and xenon ion beams of different intensity and
energy. The solid line in the figure shows the milling characteristics
by 500 nA, 7 keV argon ion beam of 12 mm diameter. As shown in
this graph until about 105 s, the Faraday cup does not register any
current since all the ions are blocked by the sample. Once the
aperture is formed, ion start passing through the aperture. Initially
the rate of rise of current read by Faraday cup is higher and then it
saturates with time. The saturated total current measured by
Faraday cup is always found to be less than the total beam current
incident on the specimen since the ions that are out of focus are
blocked by the sample. Even after 500 s, there is a steady but slow
800
600
Ar 7 kV 500 nA
Xe 10 kV 2000nA
Current (nA)
400
200
0 current density on the sample (1.76/0.65) and the ratio of time
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Time (s)
Fig. 1. Milling characteristics of 7 keV, 500 nA Ar and 10 keV, 1000 nA Xe ion beam on
60 mm thick Cu.
167
rise in the Faraday cup current due to the milling by ions in the tail
region of the distribution. Ion beam density distribution is
measured and found to be Gaussian and hence the milling speed is
significantly higher at the region on the sample with peak of the
distribution and least at the tail of the distribution. In all the ex-
periments with thinner samples, it is observed that the milling
characteristics reflects the shape of the beam. The same experiment
is carried out on same sample by using 2000 nA, 10 keV xenon ion
beam of 12 mm diameter. Xenon being 3.27 times heavier, has 2.05
times higher sputtering yield (ratio of yield of 10 keV Xe and 7 keV
Ar) than that of argon. The milling characteristics of xenon ion
beam is shown in Fig. 1 by dotted line where the aperture is milled
in just 16 s which is significantly faster than that milled by 7 keV,
500 nA argon beam. Once the aperture is made, in the initial phase
there is a rapid rise in the current on the Faraday cup (50 nA/s)
indicating rapid widening of the aperture. Within 20 s after the
initial opening of the aperture, 50% of the incident current i. e,
1000 nA was transmitted through the aperture (which is not shown
in the figure). A continous array of apertures were milled by
blanking the beam and advancing the sample by small distance
soon after detecting small current passing through the milled
aperture. Within about 170 s 10 through-holes were drilled which
is a significantly high speed and not reported so far. The experi-
ments under same conditions on 12 mm thick aluminum foil shows
the milling times less than 2 s and could be sliced continuously at a
rate of about 8e10 mm/s.
Fig. 2 shows the scanning electron microscope images of aper-
tures milled by 7 keV, 500 nA argon ion beam of 12 mm diameter.
Fig. 2A shows the milled aperture where the milling was stopped
after detecting about 50 nA of current on the Faraday cup, which
resulted in the fabrication of an aperture of less than 2 mm width
although the beam size is 12 mm. By stopping the milling after
detecting a few pA, even nanometer size apertures can be accu-
rately synthesized. However, since the milling takes place at
extremely high speed, and there are associated delays with the
electronics, power supplies etc, it is difficult to instantly stop the
milling process soon after detecting the current. In order to mill
nano apertures and with controlled dimensions it is essential to
monitor the transmitted current with high speed and stop the
milling process at a predetermined current. Since the current
passing through the aperture is proportional to the area of aperture
for a given shape of the beam, by terminating the milling process at
predefined transmitted current, the size of the milled aperture can
be very accurately controlled. In the experiments presented in this
article, the shape of the opening of an aperture is not circular due to
rough surface of the foil and polycrystalline nature of the material
or it could be due to some contamination on the rear side of the foil.
The apertures do not have vertical walls since the ion beam profile
is Gaussian and has significant current in the tail of the distribution
and they replicate the Guassian shape of the beam. The round edges
are also partly due to the redeposition of the sputtered particles
from deeper section of the foil. Fig. 2B shows the aperture milled for
350 s through which about 300 nA current is transmitted. Aperture
size is 25 mm which is wider than the beam diameter due to
sputtering by ions in the tail region of the distribution. Similar
milling experiments were carried out on much thicker material that
have very low sputtering yield such as tantalum, molybdenum and
tungsten carbide. Fig. 3 shows a typical milling characteristics of
100 mm thick tantalum sheet by 10 keV, 1000 nA and 2000 nA of Xe
ion beam of 14 mm and 12 mm diameter respectively. Ratio of the
taken to mill through-holes (340/120) are almost same indicating
that the milling rate can be increased by a same factor as the ratio of
the current density at the same energy. Since the aspect ratio is
high in thicker samples, the redeposition effect become
168 R. Menon, P.Y. Nabhiraj / Vacuum 111 (2015) 166e169

Fig. 2. A) Aperture milled by 7 keV argon ion beam of 12 mm diameter on free standing 60 mm thick copper foil for 105 s. B) Milling continued for 350 s.

700 12 mm thick aluminum in less than 2 s which is approximately 130

times faster. Nagoshi et al. have demonstrated milling of through-
600 holes in 10 mm thick silver foil using Gaþ ion beam in 113 s.
Compared to these two reported works, the newly developed ICP-
500 FIB has demonstrated significantly higher milling rates.
Milling speed is evaluated by measuring the milled volume and
the time taken for the first registration of the current by the Faraday
Current (nA)

400
300
200
100
0 giving rise to a milling speed of 612 mm3/s 100 mm thick molyb-
0 100 200 300 400
Time (s)
Fig. 3. Milling characteristics of tantalum by 10 keV xenon ion beam with current of
1000 nA and 2000 nA.
predominant and the process of milling through-holes becomes
slower, while in thinner samples due to lesser redeposition, milling
of through holes is quite rapid. A few experiments of milling
through-holes by LMIS-FIB have been reported by Khamsehpour
et al. [19] and Nagoshi et al. [20]. Khamsehpour et al. have shown
that the time for milling 10 mm thick aluminum by 30 keV, Gaþ ions
is 188 s [19], while with ICP-FIB, 12 mm thick aluminum could be
drilled by 7 keV, 500 nA argon ion beam in just under 9 s which is
21 times faster. The exit apertures in both the cases are about
1.5e2 mm. A 10 keV, 2000 nA xenon ion beam could drill through
cup. In all the experiments presented in this article, in order to
Xe 10 kV 1000nA
Xe 10 kV 2000nA calculate the milled volume easily, Gaussian shape of the aperture
is approximated to the conical shape. Consider for example, Fig. 2A,
the SEM image of 25 mm aperture milled by 12 mm (FWHM) beam.
The aperture diameter is about double that of beam diameter. The
volume of the cone with base of 25 mm diameter and height of
60 mm is ~9800 mm3 which amounts to a milling speed of 94 mm3/s.
Similarly with 2000 nA Xe beam, the same volume is milled in 16 s
500 600 700 denum and tantalum sheets are drilled in about 120 s, milling a
volume of 15,100 mm3 at milling rate of >125 mm3/s. Experiments by
600 nA, 7 keV argon beam on gold foil of thickness 25 mm have
shown the milling rates of more than 700 mm3/s. The tip of the
tungsten carbide drill bit was sliced over 300 mm length using
850 nA, Xe beam focused to 25 mm diameter on the drill-bit at
milling rate of 260 mm3/s. Based on these experimental results, it
can be extrapolated and shown that milling rates in excess of
2000 mm3/s for thin metallic foils can easily be achieved just by
increasing the energy of xenon ion beam (2000 nA) to 20 keV.
Fig. 4 shows the capability of the ICP-FIB in rapid micro-
patterning of complex features on silicon. Fig. 4A shows the
micromilling of array of 10x10 circular shallow cavities of 30 mm
diameter. Each cavity was milled in 10 s and from which the milling
rate is estimated to be ~300 mm3/s Fig. 4B shows a pattern of

Fig. 4. A) 1010 array of cavities milled by 800 nA of 10 keV xenon ion beam. (Only 810 are visible due to limitation of the camera). B) Micropattern of concentric circles with inner
and outer diameters of 20 mm and 120 mm respectively. Line widths are about 5 mm.
 R. Menon, P.Y. Nabhiraj / Vacuum 111 (2015) 166e169
concentric circles milled in 130 s. This pattern has circles with
innermost and outermost diameters of 20 mm and 120 mm
respectively with line width of 5 mm.
In conclusion, the performance of ICP-FIB for carrying out
milling in micron scales has been shown to be about two orders
faster than conventional LMIS-FIB. It is observed that the milling
rates of thinner foils are more than 700 mm3/s and there is a pos-
sibility of further increasing the milling speed in excess of
2000 mm3/s by increasing the energy of xenon ion beam to 20 keV.
It is also demonstrated that ICP-FIB is capable of milling one of the
hardest materials such as tungsten carbide and most widely used
material such as silicon at a rate greater than 250 mm3/s. Utilizing
cheaper gas like Ar and with low energy ICP-FIB system with simple
configuration, milling rates of about 1000 mm3/s on copper can
easily be achieved. This can be translated to milling of the copper
trace lines of thickness 1 mm and width of about 2 mm often used in
microcircuits or MEMS devices at a rate of 500 mm/s. Considering
the high milling rates and without introducing any contamination,
the ICP-FIB is a potential system delivering high throughput in
fabricating micro-channels, groves, apertures, microtools, nano-
pores of controlled sizes, selective ion implanted areas etc in
micron scales.
Acknowledgment
Authors are thankful to School of Materials Science and Nano-
technology of Jadavpur University for providing the SEM image.
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