1 Introduction to the focused ion beam system

The frontier of today’s scientific and engineering research is undoubtedly in the realm of nanotechnology: the imaging, manipulation, fabrication, and application of systems at the nanometer scale. To maintain the momentum of current research and industrial progress, the continued development of new state of the art tools for nanotechnology is a clear necessity. In addition, knowledge and innovative application of these tools is in increasingly high demand as greater numbers of them come into use. The interdisciplinary field of materials science, in particular, perpetually seeks imaging and analysis on a smaller and smaller scale for a more complete understanding of materials structure–composition–processing–property relationships. Moreover, the ability to conduct material fabrication via precise microand nano-machining has become imperative to the progress of materials science and other fields relying on nanotechnology. An important tool that has successfully met these challenges and promises to continue to meet future nanoscale demands is the focused ion beam (FIB) system. The technology offers the unsurpassed opportunities of direct microand nano-scale deposition or materials removal anywhere on a solid surface; this has made feasible a broad range of potential materials science and nanotechnology applications. There has naturally been great interest in exploring these applications, recently spurring the development of the two-beam FIB system, often also called DualBeam or CrossBeam, a new and more powerful tool that has advanced hand in hand with the complexity of new materials. A focused ion beam system combines imaging capabilities similar to those of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with a precision machining tool.