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Instrumentation and Ion sources platforme

Born with the Laboratoire de microstructures et de microélectroniques (L2M-CNRS) in Bagneux in the 1990's, the R&D efforts on Liquid Metal Ion sources have been methodically pursued and strengthened by gathering around the Instrumentation and Ion sources Platform a compact team, attracting the best worldwide experts through collaborations. The team is now recognized as a leading team in the field of inventing, developing and applying instrumental solutions for FIB nanofabrication.

The team has built a unique facility (read below the insert "FIB Nanowriter") in terms of engineering, testing and investigating the physics of ion high brightness ion emitters and ion beam applications. The applicative research objective is the exploration of the ultimate performance achievable using a focused ion beam. The beauty of the approach is that it allows: automated ‘no-imaging’ wafer scale applications, fabrication with automated field stitching for large continuous patterns, and step and repeat overlay with local auto-alignment or a metrology based on pure laser interferometry.

More recently the team has started a collaboration program with the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) on Ionic-liquid Thrusters (ILTs) that exploit the same basic physics from a safe, non-toxic liquid salt. This source similarly to a LMIS source (Liquid Metal Ion Source) emits Field emitted ions that once ejected to a high velocity produce thrust.