Out-of-plane surface patterning by subsurface processing of polymer substrates with focused ion beams

• Serguei Chiriaev,
• Luciana Tavares,
• Vadzim Adashkevich,
• Arkadiusz J. Goszczak and
• Horst-Günter Rubahn

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1693–1703, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.151

• Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, Sønderborg, 6400, Denmark 10.3762/bjnano.11.151 Abstract This work explores a new technique for the out-of-plane patterning of metal thin films prefabricated on the surface of a polymer substrate. This technique is based on an ion-beam-induced material modification in the bulk

• of the polymer. Effects of subsurface and surface processes on the surface morphology have been studied for three polymer materials: poly(methyl methacrylate), polycarbonate, and polydimethylsiloxane, by using focused ion beam irradiation with He+, Ne+, and Ga+. Thin films of a Pt60Pd40 alloy and of

• irradiation-induced mechanical strain in the patterning process are elaborated and discussed. Keywords: direct patterning; focused helium ion beam; out-of-plane nanopatterning; polymers; thin films; Introduction Micro- and nanofabrication with focused ion beams (FIBs) is currently a subject of strong

Oxidation of Au/Ag films by oxygen plasma: phase separation and generation of nanoporosity

• Abdel-Aziz El Mel,
• Said A. Mansour,
• Mujaheed Pasha,
• Atef Zekri,
• Janarthanan Ponraj,
• Akshath Shetty and
• Yousef Haik

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1608–1614, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.143

• increased in size (Figure 3e,f). To investigate whether the formed nanoporous microspheres have a hollow interior or not, a cross-section SEM specimen from the sample oxidized for 30 min was prepared using focused ion beam (FIB) (Figure 3e). According to the results, the microspheres were not hollow and the

Fabrication of nano/microstructures for SERS substrates using an electrochemical method

• Jingran Zhang,
• Tianqi Jia,
• Xiaoping Li,
• Junjie Yang,
• Zhengkai Li,
• Guangfeng Shi,
• Xinming Zhang and
• Zuobin Wang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1568–1576, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.139

• ion beam (FIB) technology can also be used to directly fabricate high-precision nanostructures on surfaces made of silicon, silicon dioxide and metal [27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. FIB technology is therefore used as a processing method for SERS substrates. Using the FIB method, Lin et al. [29

Helium ion microscope – secondary ion mass spectrometry for geological materials

• Matthew R. Ball,
• Richard J. M. Taylor,
• Joshua F. Einsle,
• Fouzia Khanom,
• Christelle Guillermier and
• Richard J. Harrison

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1504–1515, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.133

• Carl Zeiss SMT Inc., Peabody, MA, USA 10.3762/bjnano.11.133 Abstract The helium ion microscope (HIM) is a focussed ion beam instrument with unprecedented spatial resolution for secondary electron imaging but has traditionally lacked microanalytical capabilities. With the addition of the secondary ion

• focussed ion beam (FIB) instrument, which uses a gas field ion source (GFIS) to create highly focussed beams of noble gas ions, utilising the same working principle as the field ion microscope (FIM). This was originally used to form a primary helium beam [1], but the principle of the GFIS has since been

• extended to the heavier noble gas neon [2] and may be applicable for even heavier noble gases such as argon. Whilst the HIM was shown to achieve exceptional imaging resolution using secondary electrons generated by the primary ion beam [3][4][5][6], it lacked microanalytical capabilities. There were

Wafer-level integration of self-aligned high aspect ratio silicon 3D structures using the MACE method with Au, Pd, Pt, Cu, and Ir

• Mathias Franz,
• Romy Junghans,
• Paul Schmitt,
• Adriana Szeghalmi and
• Stefan E. Schulz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1439–1449, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.128

• PVD methods. The deposition of gold and palladium was done by magnetron sputtering. The film thickness has been adjusted by the use of a calibrated deposition rate. Ion beam sputter deposition (IBSD) has been used to deposit platinum and copper. For copper deposition, the thickness has been controlled

Effect of localized helium ion irradiation on the performance of synthetic monolayer MoS₂ field-effect transistors

• Jakub Jadwiszczak,
• Pierce Maguire,
• Conor P. Cullen,
• Georg S. Duesberg and
• Hongzhou Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1329–1335, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.117

• study of the electrical performance of chemically synthesized monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) field-effect transistors irradiated with a focused helium ion beam as a function of increasing areal irradiation coverage. We determine an optimal coverage range of approx. 10%, which allows for the

• improvement of both the carrier mobility in the transistor channel and the electrical conductance of the MoS2, due to doping with ion beam-created sulfur vacancies. Larger areal irradiations introduce a higher concentration of scattering centers, hampering the electrical performance of the device. In addition

• , we find that irradiating the electrode–channel interface has a deleterious impact on charge transport when contrasted with irradiations confined only to the transistor channel. Keywords: 2D materials; contacts; defect engineering; helium ion microscope; ion beam doping; vacancies; two-dimensional

An atomic force microscope integrated with a helium ion microscope for correlative nanoscale characterization

• Santiago H. Andany,
• Gregor Hlawacek,
• Stefan Hummel,
• Charlène Brillard,
• Mustafa Kangül and
• Georg E. Fantner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1272–1279, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.111

• Santiago H. Andany Gregor Hlawacek Stefan Hummel Charlene Brillard Mustafa Kangul Georg E. Fantner Laboratory for Bio- and Nano-Instrumentation, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz

• for nanomechanical property mapping, as well as for electrical and magnetic characterization of the sample after focused ion beam materials modification with the HIM. The experimental setup is described and evaluated through a series of correlative experiments, demonstrating the feasibility of the

• technique with electron beam and ion beam techniques for correlative nanoscale characterization and nanoscale fabrication. The motivation was driven by the new opportunity to investigate and transform features in situ with complementary techniques, thus revealing maximum information without breaking the

3D superconducting hollow nanowires with tailored diameters grown by focused He⁺ beam direct writing

• Rosa Córdoba,
• Alfonso Ibarra,
• Dominique Mailly,
• Isabel Guillamón,
• Hermann Suderow and
• José María De Teresa

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 1198–1206, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.104

• tungsten carbide nanowires with tailored diameters by tuning two key growth parameters, namely current and dose of the ion beam. Our results show the control of geometry in 3D hollow nanowires, with outer and inner diameters ranging from 36 to 142 nm and from 5 to 28 nm, respectively; and lengths from 0.5

• nano-antennas and sensors, based on 3D superconducting architectures. Keywords: electron tomography; focused ion beam induced deposition (FIBID); helium ion microscope; magneto-transport measurements; nano-superconductors; tungsten carbide (WC); Introduction Superconductors are dissipationless

• dramatically, mostly due to the complex fabrication and characterization. A technique successfully utilized for fabricating 3D nano-objects is direct writing by a focused beam of positively charged particles, the so-called focused-ion-beam induced deposition (FIBID) [20]. A very promising development of FIBID

A Josephson junction based on a highly disordered superconductor/low-resistivity normal metal bilayer

• Pavel M. Marychev and
• Denis Yu. Vodolazov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 858–865, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.71

• -thickness SN-N-SN bilayer in which the superconducting layer is partially (or entirely) etched by means of a focused ion beam. A sufficiently thick normal metal layer act as a good thermal bath, which yields a nonhysteretic current–voltage characteristic even at low temperatures. However, the increase of

• about 5 nm, which is smaller than ξc in NbN, with the help of helium ion beam lithography. The successful implementation of this method could lead to the creation of low-temperature nanoscale Josephson junctions and arrays of them. For example, SN-S-SN junctions can be promising to use in programmable

A set of empirical equations describing the observed colours of metal–anodic aluminium oxide–Al nanostructures

• Cristina V. Manzano,
• Jakob J. Schwiedrzik,
• Gerhard Bürki,
• Laszlo Pethö,
• Johann Michler and
• Laetitia Philippe

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 798–806, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.64

• (yielding to the same porosity), changing only the second anodization time (from 120 to 600 s) to obtain different film thicknesses (from 209 ± 12 nm to 380 ± 15 nm). Focused ion beam (FIB) milling and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) imaging were used to accurately determine the

• focused ion beam (FIB) instrument (TESCAN Lyra, Brno, Czech Republic) with a gallium source at 30 kV and 180–400 pA. 2 µm of platinum was deposited to protect the surface prior to FIB cutting. FESEM images were taken in three different areas of the films and three different measurements were carried out

Hexagonal boron nitride: a review of the emerging material platform for single-photon sources and the spin–photon interface

• Stefania Castelletto,
• Faraz A. Inam,
• Shin-ichiro Sato and
• Alberto Boretti

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 740–769, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.61

• the BNNTs, the PL is photostable, althougt the SPE purity is still not exceptional. In [118] SPE in a ball-like 0D BN allotrope with dimensions ≈1–100 nm, known as nanococoon BNNC, is shown. The density of the SPEs was increased by dual-beam focused ion beam and SEM to selectively irradiate the sample

• controlled formation and properties. Random generation in the material using bubble strain-induced SPEs is also demonstrated in [125]. Focused ion beam irradiation was used to mill holes in the h-BN to achieve array-like SPEs around the perimeter of the holes [126]. This method yield is very high compared to

• grown on copper, nickel and iron substrates, with a high density of SPEs of ≈100−200 per 10 × 10 µm2 with more defined ZPLs at (580 ± 10) nm. The most promising approaches seem to be the strain-induced methods and the focused ion beam method, possibly combined with low-pressure CVD for more controlled

Electromigration-induced directional steps towards the formation of single atomic Ag contacts

• Atasi Chatterjee,
• Christoph Tegenkamp and
• Herbert Pfnür

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 680–687, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.55

• shell effects, can be discriminated. Although the directional motion of atoms during EM leads to specific properties such as the instabilities mentioned, similarities to mechanically opened contacts with respect to cross-sectional stability were found. Keywords: electromigration; focussed ion beam

• could not be identified visually nor be reproducibly generated. This contrasts with experiments where the smallest constriction was reduced by one order of magnitude down to about 15 nm using a focused ion beam (FIB), i.e., far below the average grain size in the Ag film, in which complex morphological

Comparison of fresh and aged lithium iron phosphate cathodes using a tailored electrochemical strain microscopy technique

• Matthias Simolka,
• Hanno Kaess and
• Kaspar Andreas Friedrich

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 583–596, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.46

• spectroscopy (EDS or EDX) it adds chemical information on the elemental distribution to the structural analysis. Further methods that have been applied to study ageing in LFP are X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), inductively coupled plasma (ICP), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), focused ion beam

Formation of nanoripples on ZnO flat substrates and nanorods by gas cluster ion bombardment

• Xiaomei Zeng,
• Vasiliy Pelenovich,
• Bin Xing,
• Rakhim Rakhimov,
• Wenbin Zuo,
• Alexander Tolstogouzov,
• Chuansheng Liu,
• Dejun Fu and
• Xiangheng Xiao

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 383–390, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.29

• Ion Beam Application, School of Physics and Technology, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China School of Power & Mechanical Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China Ryazan State Radio Engineering University, Gagarin Str. 59/1, Ryazan 390005, Russian Federation Centre for Physics and

• parallel steps or ribs. The more ordered ripple formation on nanorods can be associated with the confinement of the nanorod facets in comparison with the quasi-infinite surface of the flat substrates. Keywords: cluster ion bombardment; gas cluster ion beam; surface ripples; ZnO nanorods; Introduction The

• -enhanced Raman spectroscopy [4]. Ion beam formation of nanoscale ripples has emerged as a versatile method to imprint uniaxial magnetic anisotropy [5] and to control the magnetic texture of thin films [6]. Formation of self-assembled surface nanoripple structures by monoatomic off-normal ion irradiation

Nanosecond resistive switching in Ag/AgI/PtIr nanojunctions

• Botond Sánta,
• Dániel Molnár,
• Patrick Haiber,
• Agnes Gubicza,
• Edit Szilágyi,
• Zsolt Zolnai,
• András Halbritter and
• Miklós Csontos

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2020, 11, 92–100, doi:10.3762/bjnano.11.9

• following the method of Kumar and co-workers [36]. The Ag films were evaporated on standard Si/SiO2 wafers using a 12 nm thick Ti sticking layer. The structural characterization of the thin film samples was carried out by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) using an ion beam of 3500 keV 4He

Mobility of charge carriers in self-assembled monolayers

• Zhihua Fu,
• Tatjana Ladnorg,
• Hartmut Gliemann,
• Alexander Welle,
• Asif Bashir,
• Michael Rohwerder,
• Qiang Zhang,
• Björn Schüpbach,
• Andreas Terfort and
• Christof Wöll

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 2449–2458, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.235

• . Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) measurements were carried out in a TOF-SIMS 5 device (ION-TOF GmbH, Münster, Germany). The spectrometry was performed in static SIMS mode (primary ion beam dose < 2 × 1011 ions/cm2) with Bi3+ primary ions at 25 keV. Spectra were calibrated on

Gold-coated plant virus as computed tomography imaging contrast agent

• Alaa A. A. Aljabali,
• Mazhar S. Al Zoubi,
• Khalid M. Al-Batanyeh,
• Ali Al-Radaideh,
• Mohammad A. Obeid,
• Abeer Al Sharabi,
• Walhan Alshaer,
• Bayan AbuFares,
• Tasnim Al-Zanati,
• Murtaza M. Tambuwala,
• Naveed Akbar and
• David J. Evans

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1983–1993, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.195

• concentration of 0.01–0.05 mg/mL and deposited on 400 mesh carbon grids (SPI supplies), samples were air dried prior to imaging. Energy-dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy A FIB Scios system was used combined with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a focused ion beam equipped with X-MaxN 50 mm2 EDS system to

Precise local control of liquid crystal pretilt on polymer layers by focused ion beam nanopatterning

• Maxim V. Gorkunov,
• Irina V. Kasyanova,
• Vladimir V. Artemov,
• Alena V. Mamonova and
• Serguei P. Palto

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1691–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.164

• alignment of rubbed polymer layers can be locally flipped to vertical by irradiation with a focused ion beam on a scale of tens of nanometers. Results: We propose a digital method to precisely steer the liquid crystal director tilt at polymer surfaces by combining micrometer-size areas treated with focused

• ion beam and pristine areas. The liquid crystal tends to average the competing vertical and planar alignment actions and is stabilized with an intermediate pretilt angle determined by the local pattern duty factor. In particular, we create micrometer-sized periodic stripe patterns with this factor

• techniques such as patterning with nanogrooves [13][14][15] and nanoslits [16], ion-beam irradiation of specific inorganic [17] and polymer [18] substrates, subjecting of photo-controlled aligning polymers to near-threshold doses of ultraviolet radiation [19], formation of surface microdomains from

Stationary beam full-field transmission helium ion microscopy using sub-50 keV He⁺: Projected images and intensity patterns

• Michael Mousley,
• Santhana Eswara,
• Olivier De Castro,
• Olivier Bouton,
• Nico Klingner,
• Christoph T. Koch,
• Gregor Hlawacek and
• Tom Wirtz

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1648–1657, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.160

• Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf e.V., Bautzner Landstr. 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany Department of Physics, Humboldt University of Berlin, Newtonstraße 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany 10.3762/bjnano.10.160 Abstract A dedicated transmission helium ion microscope

• impact on the final intensity distribution in the far field. Hence, the different processes contributing to the final intensities will need to be understood in order to decouple and study the relevant ion-beam scattering and deflection phenomena. Keywords: charging; helium ion microscopy; ion

• The THIM instrument shown schematically in Figure 1 was used to acquire the THIM images of BN nanoparticles adhered to a TEM grid as shown in Figure 2. A video was recorded while varying the Lens 2 voltage (which sets the ion beam focal point) from approximately 5 kV to 9 kV. Simulations with SIMION

Subsurface imaging of flexible circuits via contact resonance atomic force microscopy

• Wenting Wang,
• Chengfu Ma,
• Yuhang Chen,
• Lei Zheng,
• Huarong Liu and
• Jiaru Chu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1636–1647, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.159

• 11 wt % PMMA in anisole solvent at 1500 rpm for 5 min, resulting in a thickness of approximately 3.5 µm. Then, a 300 nm thick Au film was sputtered on the PMMA substrate by using magnetron sputtering. The Au film was subsequently patterned by focused ion beam (FIB) milling (FEI, Helios NanoLab 650

Kelvin probe force microscopy of the nanoscale electrical surface potential barrier of metal/semiconductor interfaces in ambient atmosphere

• Petr Knotek,
• Tomáš Plecháček,
• Jan Smolík,
• Petr Kutálek,
• Filip Dvořák,
• Milan Vlček,
• Jiří Navrátil and
• Čestmír Drašar

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1401–1411, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.138

• generated in the analyzer. The work function of the sample was calculated as WF = hν Ecut-off, where Ecut-off was determined from the intersection of the linear extrapolation of the secondary-electron cut-off (SECO) with the background. All samples were sputtered with argon ions using a scanning focused ion

• beam source in order to remove surface contaminants. A monoatomic argon ion source was utilized with energy of 2 keV, ion current 10 µA, raster area 1 × 1 mm2 and sputtering time 30 s. Results and Discussion Separated metal nanoparticles on the substrate In TE materials the NIs applicable for an

Gas sensing properties of individual SnO₂ nanowires and SnO₂ sol–gel nanocomposites

• Alexey V. Shaposhnik,
• Dmitry A. Shaposhnik,
• Sergey Yu. Turishchev,
• Olga A. Chuvenkova,
• Stanislav V. Ryabtsev,
• Alexey A. Vasiliev,
• Xavier Vilanova,
• Francisco Hernandez-Ramirez and
• Joan R. Morante

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1380–1390, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.136

• electrical contacts with individual nanowires [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. These contacts can be made by means of photolithography, but more often, focused ion beam (FIB) technology is used for this purpose. This approach has several advantages: first, a reliable electrical contact

• contamination on the sample surfaces. Device manufacture Manufacture of the device based on a single nanowire Individual nanowires were electrically contacted by direct focused-ion beam (FIB) platinum deposition, using an FEI dual beam Strata 235 instrument combined with a metal–organic injector to deposit

Fabrication of phase masks from amorphous carbon thin films for electron-beam shaping

• Lukas Grünewald,
• Dagmar Gerthsen and
• Simon Hettler

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1290–1302, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.128

• , which induces unwanted scattering events. Results: Phase masks of conductive amorphous carbon (aC) were successfully fabricated with optical lithography and focused ion beam milling. Analysis by TEM shows the successful generation of Bessel and vortex beams. No charging or degradation of the aC phase

• structure without any (in-)elastic scattering events, i.e., the amplitude is only modified slightly. Experimentally, focused ion beam (FIB) milling or electron-beam lithography are used to engrave a well-defined thickness profile in an amorphous thin film thereby exploiting the direct proportionality

• deviations from the desired form because the ideally sharp edges are significantly rounded due to the finite diameter of the ion beam. Application of phase masks Bessel beam phase mask in object plane PMs were first investigated as conventional samples in the object plane of a TEM which allows for a detailed

CuInSe₂ quantum dots grown by molecular beam epitaxy on amorphous SiO₂ surfaces

• Henrique Limborço,
• Pedro M.P. Salomé,
• Rodrigo Ribeiro-Andrade,
• Jennifer P. Teixeira,
• Nicoleta Nicoara,
• Kamal Abderrafi,
• Joaquim P. Leitão,
• Juan C. Gonzalez and
• Sascha Sadewasser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 1103–1111, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.110

• present one line for each element. The STEM lamellae were prepared in a focused ion beam (FIB) FEI Dual-Beam Helios 450S with FIB Mo-grids using a technique known as “lift-out” [35]. To improve FIB preparation and visualization of the nanodots in the STEM, the samples were coated with an amorphous carbon

Nanoscale optical and structural characterisation of silk

• Meguya Ryu,
• Reo Honda,
• Adrian Cernescu,
• Arturas Vailionis,
• Armandas Balčytis,
• Jitraporn Vongsvivut,
• Jing-Liang Li,
• Denver P. Linklater,
• Elena P. Ivanova,
• Vygantas Mizeikis,
• Mark J. Tobin,
• Junko Morikawa and
• Saulius Juodkazis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 922–929, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.93

• modalities of sample preparation for nanoscale imaging include focused ion beam milling and microtome slicing. When the thickness of samples, especially soft biomaterials, is close to 100 nm the cutting tool might cause tear- and cut-induced strain below the surface. In turn, this can cause artifacts in the