LAUSR

Compared to Ga+ liquid metal ion source (LMIS) DualBeam FIB-SEMs, Xe+ inductively couple plasma (ICP) DualBeams are relatively new [1]. Until recently, only Ga+ and Xe+ source technologies have been commercially available. LMIS Ga+ FIB technology offers an ion beam that provides high resolution capability for nanoprototyping and offers enough current for S/TEM sample preparation of most samples in less than an hour as well as FIB serial sectioning tomography (SST) of volumes up to 40X40X40 μm3/hr (silicon using 30 kV-65 nA) with interslice distances as small as 3 nm [2,3]. On the other hand, Xe+ PFIB technology has a much larger beam current capability allowing researchers to investigate volumes up to 130X130X130 μm3/hr (silicon using 30 kV-2.5 μA). Additionally, xenon ions offer the user the ability to prepare gallium-free S/TEM samples or cross-sections [4,5]. However, for a number of applications, neither gallium nor xenon may provide the highest quality results because of their intrinsic properties.