Studying the Regimes of Silicon Surface Profiling by Focused Ion Beams

The regimes of submicron and nanosized profiling of the KDB-10 Si(100) wafer surface by the focused ion beam (FIB) technique are experimentally investigated. It is established that with an increase in the ion beam current from 1 to 300 pA, the diameter and depth of nanostructures increases from 45 to 380 nm and from 82 to 494 nm, respectively. The best resolution determined by the minimum distance between etched lines is found to be 10 nm. It is demonstrated that with a decrease in the ion beam current from 7 nA to 1 pA and in the dwell time from 100 to 0.2 µs, the deviation of etched structure walls from the vertical decreases to 30°. The results obtained can be used to develop technologies for fabricating nanoelectronic and microsystems engineering elements by the FIB technique.