Nanofabrication with Focused Ion Beams
Dr. John Melngailis: (301) 405-4915, melng at umd.edu

Focused ion beams (FIBs) are used to remove and add material at nanometer dimensions. Our laboratory (Laboratory for Ion Beam Research and Applications, LIBRA) is developing new applications for FIBs, for example for the repair of masks, for fault diagnosis, and for circuit restructuring. These techniques are widely used in the integrated circuits industry now, but are posing new challenges as circuit dimensions shrink into the nanometer regime. The techniques have a wide variety of research applications, some of which are pursued in our laboratory and include nanostructuring metal films and ultra-thin optical fibers, making contacts to carbon nanotubes and organic and inorganic nanowires, and patterning ferroelectric structures.