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Focused Ion Beam Preparation of Low Melting Point Metals: Lessons Learned From Indium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2022

Joseph R. Michael Open the ORCID record for Joseph R. Michael [Opens in a new window] ,
Daniel L. Perry ,
Damion P. Cummings ,
Jeremy A. Walraven  and
Matthew B. Jordan
Joseph R. Michael*
Affiliation:
Material, Physical, and Chemical Sciences Center, Sandia National Laboratory, PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0886, USA
Daniel L. Perry
Affiliation:
Material, Physical, and Chemical Sciences Center, Sandia National Laboratory, PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0886, USA
Damion P. Cummings
Affiliation:
Material, Physical, and Chemical Sciences Center, Sandia National Laboratory, PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0886, USA
Jeremy A. Walraven
Affiliation:
MESA: Microsystem Engineering, Science, and Applications, Sandia National Laboratory, PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185-1072, USA
Matthew B. Jordan
Affiliation:
MESA: Microsystem Engineering, Science, and Applications, Sandia National Laboratory, PO Box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185-1084, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Joseph R. Michael, E-mail: jrmicha@sandia.gov
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Abstract

Indium (In) and other low melting point metals are used as interconnects in a variety of hybridized circuits and a full understanding of the metallurgy of these interconnects is important to the reliability and performance of the devices. This paper shows that room temperature focused ion beam (FIB) preparation of cross-sections, using Ga+ or Xe+ can result in artifacts that obscure the true In microbump structure. The use of modified milling strategies to minimize the increased local sample temperature are shown to produce cross-sections that are representative of the In bump microstructure in some sample configurations. Furthermore, cooling of the sample to cryogenic temperatures is shown to reliably eliminate artifacts in FIB prepared cross-sections of In bumps allowing the true bump microstructure to be observed.

Keywords

cryoFIBindiumPFIB
Type
Materials Science Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , June 2022 , pp. 603 - 610
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Microscopy Society of America

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