The Louisiana Accelerator Center

Research: Papers | ::POSTER PRESENTATIONS::| Conferences

Materials Analysis with High-Energy Ion Beams

The Louisiana Accelerator Center (LAC) at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is recognized as a Research Center by the Louisiana Board of Regents with active research programs emphasizing biomaterials analysis, microfabricationand high energy focused ion beam system development. The Center has more than 12,000 sq. ft. of laboratory, machine shop and office space and has a large
research equipment inventory including a National Electrostatics Corporation 5SDH-2 1.7 MV tandem Pelletronaccelerator with duoplasmatron, radio-frequency and cesium sputtering negative ion sources, an Oxford MicrobeamSystems triplet lens ion beam focusing system and two JEOL (models 840 and 6460LV) Scanning Electron Microscopes. Three beamlineson the Pelletronaccelerator
are used for ion beam analysis, ion beam modification, and high energy focused ion beam microscopyto provide a variety of ion beam techniques using MeVion beams.

Maskless micromachining with high-energy focused ion beams

While the difficulty in focusing high energy (MeV) ion beams due to their relatively high magnetic rigidity is an inherent barrier to overcome, this characteristic can also be significant advantage when utilizing focused ion beams for micro fabrication. The High Energy Focused Ion Beam (HEFIB) direct writing is proving to be an attractive and powerful maskless lithography technique for production of high aspect ratio 3-D microstructures in polymer resists and semiconductors. HEFIB with Proton beam (P-beam writing) offers several unique advantages for microfabricationapplications: (a) the focused beam is scanned directly across the sample (no mask), (b) the range of the beam in the sample is well defined with minimal lateral straggling than any other techniques, (c) use of different energies allows different exposure depths, (d) complex shapes are possible and (e) patterns can be made within short exposure time. These characteristics allow P-beam writing to be applied in several areas of microfabricationincluding(a) rapid (and cheaper) prototyping of 3-D microstructures, (b) custom built structures for basi (c) mask production and (d) stamp and mold manufacturing. Some of the recent experimental results using high energy proton micro-beam direct writing facility at Louisiana Accelerator Center (LAC) are presented.