Creation and physical aspects of luminescent patterns using helium ion microscopy

摘要

The helium ion microscope provides a sub-nanometer size He+ ion beam which can be employed for materials modification. We demonstrate how material properties can be tuned in a helium ion microscope with very high precision using, as an example, the modification of the luminescence properties of a sodium chloride crystal. Although the beam size is extremely small, the actually affected sample volume is much bigger due to collision cascades. We have directly measured the diameter of the interaction volume of the 35 keV He+ beam with a sodium chloride crystal using ionoluminescence. The experimental results are compared to stopping and range of ions in matter simulations and calculations of the point spread function.