An Experiment-Based Profile Function for the Calculation of Damage Distribution in Bulk Silicon Induced by a Helium Focused Ion Beam Process

• Main Authors: Qianhuang Chen, Tianyang Shao, Yan Xing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: focused helium ion beam; ion dose; beam energy; silicon substrate; damage profile
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/8/2306

The helium focused ion beam (He-FIB) is widely used in the field of nanostructure fabrication due to its high resolution. Complicated forms of processing damage induced by He-FIB can be observed in substrates, and these damages have a severe impact on nanostructure processing. This study experimentally investigated the influence of the beam energy and ion dose of He-FIB on processing damage. Based on the experimental results, a prediction function for the amorphous damage profile of the single-crystalline silicon substrate caused by incident He-FIB was proposed, and a method for calculating the amorphous damage profile by inputting ion dose and beam energy was established. Based on one set of the amorphous damage profiles, the function coefficients were determined using a genetic algorithm. Experiments on single-crystalline silicon scanned by He-FIB under different process parameters were carried out to validate the model. The proposed experiment-based model can accurately predict the amorphous damage profile induced by He-FIB under a wide range of different ion doses and beam energies.