The effect of sidewall roughness on line edge roughness in top-down scanning electron microscopy images

Determination of line edge roughness in low-dose top-down scanning electron microscopy images

We investigated the off-line metrology for line edge roughness (LER) determination by using the discrete power spectral density (PSD). The study specifically addresses low-dose scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images in order to reduce the acquisition time and the risk of resist shrinkage. The first attempts are based on optimized elliptic...

Size and shape control of sub-20 nm patterns fabricated using focused electron beam-induced processing

In a first study to analyze the feasibility of electron beam-induced deposition (EBID) for creating certain patterns in advanced lithography, line patterns were fabricated on silicon wafers using EBID. The growth conditions were such that the growth rate is fully determined by the electron flux (the current limited growth regime). It is...

Parallel electron-beam-induced deposition using a multi-beam scanning electron microscope

Lithography techniques based on electron-beam-induced processes are inherently slow compared to light lithography techniques. The authors demonstrate here that the throughput can be enhanced by a factor of 196 by using a scanning electron microscope equipped with a multibeam electron source. Using electron-beam induced deposition with MeCpPtMe3...

Electron-beam-induced deposition of 3-nm-half-pitch patterns on bulk Si

This paper demonstrates electron-beam-induced deposition of few-nm-width dense features on bulk samples by using a scanning electron-beam lithography system. To optimize the resultant features, three steps were taken: (1) features were exposed in a repetitive sequence, so as to build up the deposited features gradually across the entire pattern,...

Angular Dependence of the Ion-Induced Secondary Electron Emission for He+ and Ga+ Beams

In recent years, novel ion sources have been designed and developed that have enabled focused ion beam machines to go beyond their use as nano-fabrication tools. Secondary electrons are usually taken to form images, for their yield is high and strongly dependent on the surface characteristics, in terms of chemical composition and topography. In...

Brightness limitations of cold field emitters caused by Coulomb interactions

Emission theory predicts that high brightness cold field emitters can enhance imaging in the electron microscope. This (neglecting chromatic aberration) is because of the large (coherent) probe current available from a high brightness source and is based on theoretically determined values of reduced brightnesses up to 1014?A/(m2?sr?V). However,...

Multibeam scanning electron microscope: Experimental results

The authors present the first results obtained with their multibeam scanning electron microscope. For the first time, they were able to image 196 (array of 14×14) focused beams of a multielectron beam source on a specimen using single beam scanning electron microscope (SEM) optics. The system consists of an FEI Novanano 200 SEM optics column...

On the influence of the sputtering in determining the resolution of a scanning ion microscope

The determination of the quality of an imaging system is not an easy task for, in general, at least three parameters, strictly interdependent, concur in defining it: resolution, contrast, and signal-to-noise ratio. The definition of resolution itself in scanning microscopy is elusive and the case of scanning ion microscopy is complicated by the...

Positioning Pd catalyst particles for carbon nanotube growth using charge patterns created with a scanning electron microscope

Positioning of charged nanoparticles with the help of charge patterns in an insulator substrate is a known method. However, the creation of charge patterns with a scanning electron microscope for this is relatively new. Here a scanning electron microscope is used for the creation of localized charge patterns in an insulator, while a glowing wire...

Optimization of focused ion beam performance

The authors have analyzed how much current can be obtained in the probe of an optimized two-lens focused ion beam (FIB) system. This becomes relevant, as systems become available that have the potential to image and/or fabricate structures smaller than 10 nm. The probe current versus probe size curves were calculated for a commercial gallium-FIB...

Brightness measurements of a gallium liquid metal ion source

The virtual source size of a liquid metal ion source is an order of magnitude larger than the size of the region from which the ions are emitted at the source. This source size has a direct effect on the reduced brightness and, hence, on the performance of these sources. The variation of the virtual source size of a gallium liquid metal ion...

Sputtering limits versus signal-to-noise limits in the observation of Sn balls in a Ga+ microscope

In principle, a scanning ion microscope can produce smaller probe sizes than a scanning electron microscope because the diffraction contribution is smaller. However, the imaging resolution is often severely limited by the sputtering damage. In this article, an experimental procedure to establish the limit of a focused ion beam system for imaging...

Synthesis of Nanostructures using Electron Beam Induced Deposition

Growth behavior near the ultimate resolution of nanometer-scale focused electron beam-induced deposition

Micro x-ray source

The invention relates 'to a micro X-ray source comprising a target acting as anode, and a cathode, which during operation interacts with the target and functions as electron source, wherein the target is embodied as a metal foil possessing a spot where the electrons from the electron source arrive, the metal foil being locally thinner at the spot.

Multibeam Electron Source using MEMS Electron Optical Components

Spatial resolution limits in electron-beam-induced deposition

Electron-beam-induced deposition (EBID) is a versatile micro- and nanofabrication technique based on electron-induced dissociation of metal-carrying gas molecules adsorbed on a target. EBID has the advantage of direct deposition of three-dimensional structures on almost any target geometry. This technique has occasionally been used in focused...