Focused ion beam lithography (IBL) offers nanolithography process channels that are complimentary to those provided by electron beam lithography (EBL). IBL allows for resistless nanofabrication, thereby reducing process complexity for rapid prototyping and making possible the direct writing of, and on, 3D structures. IBL is therefore enabling a growing range of unique applications and is an active area for instrumentation development.

When microscopy companies began delivering FIB-SEM systems, the nanoresearch community immediately sought more sophisticated nanopatterning solutions than were inherently available in the FIB-SEM systems. And so, a large portion of FIB-SEM systems in service today have 3rd party nanopatterning solutions, such as the Raith ELPHY MultiBeam. As nanoscale science and technology has rapidly advanced over the last decade, the nanoresearch community has already identified advanced IBL tasks, which, for several reasons, cannot be served with FIB-SEM, even when enabled by ELPHY MultiBeam. These tasks typically require high resolution patterning over large areas, sometimes with zero stitching errors, accurate overlay, patterning over long time periods, and high lateral selectivity.

For these demanding IBL tasks, Raith manufactures the ionLiNE, a dedicated focused ion beam lithography instrument. Here we present the latest results from the most advanced IBL tasks brought to the Raith ionLiNE by our growing ion beam lithography community. These tasks include the batch nanopore fabrication at the wafer level for biomolecule sensing, 3D microfluidic mixing channels, large area diamond film patterning, x-ray zone plates, large area gratings for photonics/plasmonics, all of which are not possible with FIB-SEM, even when enabled by ELPHY MultiBeam.