Influence analysis of dwell time on focused ion beam micromachining in silicon

Influence of dwell time on focused ion beam (FlB) mcromachining process by means of single pixel writing mode sputtering silicon is discussed in this paper. It affects line broadening and sputtering depth during the milling process in silicon material. It is proved by the experimental results that long dwell time leads to deep milling depth due to reducing scanning numbers of pixel. The broadening effect by the wing of Gaussian distribution profile is different from the variation of beam limiting aperture size. In the case of the aperture size 150 mu m and below, the effect is little with changing of dwell time. It is obviously serious for large aperture size with the short dwell times of less than 3 mu s. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.