Investigation of Rb$^+$ Milling Rates using an Ultracold Focused Ion Beam

TL;DR

This study explores the use of ultracold Rb$^+$ ions in focused ion beam systems, demonstrating comparable or superior milling rates and surface quality on various materials, highlighting its potential for advanced nanostructuring.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed investigation of ultracold Rb$^+$ ions for material milling, comparing their performance with traditional Ga$^+$ ions across different substrates.

Findings

Rb$^+$ ions reduce surface roughness on metals.

Comparable sputter rates of Rb$^+$ and Ga$^+$ on semiconductors.

Material-dependent variations in sputter rates with Rb$^+$.

Abstract

Several ion source alternatives for current focused ion beam (FIB) systems have been studied to achieve higher brightness, including cold atom ion sources. However, a study of ultracold ions interacting with often used materials is seldom reported. Here we investigate milling on several typical samples in a prototype ultracold Rb FIB system at 8.5 keV beam energy. For polycrystalline metallic substrates, such as Cu and Au, patterns milled by Rb$^+$ ions are observed to have reduced surface roughness, but still high milling rates compared with those milled by Ga$^+$ ions. Rb$^+$ also shows similar sputter rates as 30 keV Ga$^+$ on semiconductor substrates GaAs and InP. Special cases for Rb$^+$ milling show that the Rb$^+$ ion beam has a $2.6 \times$ faster sputter rate on diamond but a $3 \times$ slower sputter rate on Al compared with a normal 30 keV Ga$^+$ ion beam. Generally, a Rb$^+$ ion beam is shown to be suitable for nanostructuring of several basic materials.