Effects of Ion Species and Energy on the Amorphization of Si During FIB TEM Sample Preparation as Determined by Computational and Experimental Methods

Abstract Gallium focused ion beam (FIB) milling is the method of choice to prepare cross sections of selected features from microelectronic devices for transmission electron microscope (TEM) imaging and analysis. The FIB milling technique is unsurpassed in producing an ultra-thin cross section accurately located through the feature of interest. While much effort has been invested in the development and refinement of Ga+ FIB techniques and instrumentation, there are problems due to the physics of the ion-solid interaction. The problem of surface amorphization limits the quality of the TEM samples and its significance increases as the feature size and the specimen thickness decrease. In Ga+ FIB milling of silicon, the amorphous damage layer consists of amorphous Si doped with implanted Ga. This damage layer is caused by ions that strike the surface of the silicon and are subsequently scattered laterally as a result of collisions with the Si atoms.