Effect of focused ion beam process parameter on Tin-Nickel-Copper micropillars microfabrication

In this work, the mechanism of focused ion beam (FIB) milling as an advanced manufacturing technique is studied to pattern micropillars at different diameter sizes of 5, 10 and 20 mu m. Under the same type of ion source which is Ga ion, the main ion beam parameters that influenced the FIB machining to produce micropillars are the ion beam scanning, dose, profile, and incident angle. The mathematical modeling is presented to describe the micropillars' production by crater sputtering of the FIB milling. The effect of sputtering and redeposition on the final geometrical micropillars suggest the arrangement of the multilayer sample (Sn/Ni/Cu) that close to the ion irradiation gets highly sputtered and redeposited despite the surface binding energy and sputtering yield, of each element is known. Results show that the highest aspect ratio values are derived from the lowest diameter size of the micropillars produced from the FIB machining.