NPGS: FIB Milling

The movie files below show NPGS being used for FIB Milling.  The work was performed by Dr. David C Cox at the Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey, UK.

Above: A series of 300nm holes milled sequentially into a metal film.

Above: Da Vinci's 'Vitruvian Man' milled into silicon with a Focused Ion Beam. Line widths are ~60nm wide.

Above: The M.C. Escher drawing 'Hand with Reflecting Sphere' milled into silicon with ~50 nm linewidths.

Notes:

1) The movies appear stretched in the horizontal direction because the movies are acquired using the electron beam in a dual e-beam / ion beam microscope and during milling the sample is positioned normal to the ion beam, but is at a large angle relative to the e-beam. The thumbnail images on the Sample Pictures page show the true aspect ratio as seen when the sample is normal to the e-beam.

2) The 2nd and 3rd movies appear choppy because of a mismatch between the frame averaging of the microscope and the frame rate of the movie capture.  The actual writing proceeded smoothly.