Self-marked preparation of site-specific transmission electron microscope lamellae of nanodevices using focusing ion beam technique.

The precise extraction of a thin slice (lamellae) from nano electronic devices using a focused ion beam (FIB) is crucial for transmission electron microscopy analysis, but it remains a challenge for 100 nm and beyond scale device components. In this study, we introduce a new method that utilizes the device's own features as markers during FIB thinning process by continuously monitoring the intermediate structures with secondary electron scanning electron microscopy (SE-SEM) imaging. This allows for the targeted extraction of the desired device component with high precision. We successfully demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach by extracting lamellae from 100 nm length channel in arrayed carbon nanotube film field-effect transistors using FIB lift-out. Lay Description: In today's semiconductor industry, nanoscale and even atomic-scale investigation of the processing and product quality of nanodevices is essential, for which the combination of focused ion beam (FIB) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) is a commonly used tool. A key requirement is to ensure the TEM examined device components are precisely defined during the FIB process, which is becoming a challenge particularly for 100 nm scale (and beyond) nanodevices. In this study, the authors propose and further demonstrate a self-marked method that enables the feasibility of extracting sub-100 nm components of nanodevices (using the state-of-the art carbon nanotube transistor as a demo) using FIB, by continuously monitoring intermediate structures with secondary electron scanning electron microscopy (SE-SEM) imaging. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.