CHARPAN

Charged Particle Nanotech

Project

BENEFITS

Compared with FIB (single focused ion beam) tools, CHARPAN has three orders of magnitude less current density, which is a decisive advantage when using gas assisted etching or deposition processes. With mA/cm2 current density there is sufficient time to cover the sample with the desired layer of the precursor gas material.

This means a two-fold advantage of CHARPAN if precursors are used, as the processing speed is enhanced by an overall largely increased availability of the chemical reactants (no self-limiting by sputtering) and the efficiency is further improved by avoiding extra cycle times (typical for FIB processing).

With respect to productivity CHARPAN offers enhancements by three orders of magnitude when compared to existing FIB techniques, since with CHARPANthe total ion beam current is in the order of nA whereas for FIB systems at 10 nm resolution the current is limited to pA.