Charged Particle Systems: Fundamentals, Trends & Opportunities

This tutorial will describe the fundamentals of various charged particle sources with an outline of their features, benefits and applications space. Included is a comparison of liquid metal ion sources (LMIS), plasma sources, gas field ionization sources and cold ion sources. We will cover basic detection schemes for photons, ions, electrons and the applications for live milling and end point detection in FIB[1]SEM platforms. We’ll discuss technology trends of charged particle systems. We’ll also describe the present and future potential of small form factor mass ion and electron spectrometers, which bring analytical surface analysis to the FIB-SEM environment. We will explore associated minimum detectable volumes for Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy and Auger on FIB-SEM platforms in comparison to x-ray detection. We will discuss the physics of interaction volumes for various analytical signals and the options for employing a range of ion species for direct write patterning, circuit edit and ion lithography. Finally, we will discuss the significant potential for computationally guided microscopy modules to provide intelligent automation with feedback for data validation and advanced imaging capabilities and updates on applications which include: point spread function deconvolution; compressed sensing methods; multi-variant analysis; 3D surface reconstruction and applications of machine learning in charged particle imaging and analytical workflows.