Exploration of the ultimate patterning potential achievable with focused ion beams

In this paper, we present our work aiming to explore the nano-structuring potential of high resolution focused ion beams (FIB), a technology capable of overcoming some basic limitations of current nano-fabrication techniques and to propose new patterning schemes for nanoscience. To demonstrate this, we present some of our recent results based on ion-induced local property modifications or localised damage injection. We first detail the very high resolution FIB system we have developed. Then FIB nano-fabrication experiments are presented and discussed. We show that stable artificial surface nano-defects can be created with very low ion dose. The properties of stable magnetic structures (dots and lines) fabricated on ultrathin magnetic films using extremely low surface ion dose (10(12)-10(15) ions/cm(2)) are presented. In a last example, we show that the promising direction of "bottom-up" or "organisation" processes can be envisaged with FIB. This can be achieved using defects capable of pinning the diffusion and of promoting organisation of nano-metre-sized clusters (gold or cobalt-platinum) on a graphite crystalline surface. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.