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A Tutorial of the Fib Lift-Out Technique for TEM Specimen Preparation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Lucille A. Giannuzzi*
Affiliation:
Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center, Mechanical Materials & Aerospace Engineering, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL , 32816-2450.
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The focused ion beam (FIB) instrument has been developed and exploited by the microelectronics arena for specimen preparation for both scanning and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The inception [1] and subsequent development [2] of the FIB TEM lift-out (LO) technique has enabled electron transparent membranes of generally uniform thickness to be produced for TEM analysis. The primary advantage of the FIB technique is that site specific cross sections (or plan view sections [3]) may be fabricated quickly and reproducibly. The FIB LO technique has been used extensively in our laboratory for a wide range of materials [4] and biological applications [5] which are summarized in figure 1.

The FIB LO method consists of milling a series of trenches around an area of interest. Then the bulk sample is tilted up to ∼60 degrees to allow the beam to impinge on the lower portion of the specimen surface so that cuts can be made along the bottom edge and the lower 2/3 of the distance up one side of the specimen.

Type
Focussed Ion Beam
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America

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References

1.Overwijk, et al., J. of Vacuum Science & Technology, v 11 n 6 (1993) 202.Google Scholar
2.Giannuzzi, et al., Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 480, (1997), 19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Stevie, et al., Charact. And Metrology for ULSI Technology: 1998 Conference, ed. Seiler et al., AIP, (1998), 868.Google Scholar
4.Giannuzzi, et al., Microscopy Research and Technique, 41 (1998) 285.3.0.CO;2-Q>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5.Giannuzzi, et al., in press, J. Process Analytical Chemistry.Google Scholar
6.Giannuzzi, et al., in press, J . of Vacuum Science & Technology.Google Scholar
7.Prenitzer, , et al., in press, J. of Vacuum Science & Technology.Google Scholar
8. The support by NSF DMR #, the 14 UCF/Cirent Partnership. The involvement with multiple collaborators over the past few years is greatly appreciated, especially my graduate students, colleagues at Cirent Semiconductor, and colleagues and students at Penn State and SUNY Stony Brook.Google Scholar