Dual Beam Lab

Lab equipped with a SOLARIS X dual beam system, produced by TESCAN. It consists of a canning electron microscope equipped with a field emission gun (FEG) source providing the possibility to perform morphological analysis of samples by electron microscopy as well as localized compositional measurements by means of a sensor to acquire and spectrally analyze the emitted X rays (EDS). It has moreover the capability to perform electron beam lithography.
The system is equipped with a second column, an ion beam column for the generation of a focused ion beam (FIB) which uses a plasma source to generate a flux of Xenon ions. The combined use of both columns allows the users to cut, dig and ablate many different types of samples in a well-defined geometry at the micro-and nano-scale and with very precise positioning and very high resolution while observing the processes by means of the electron beam.
Moreover, the system is equipped with a series of tree different gas injection systems (GIS) allowing to inject in the high vacuum chamber of the microscope a series of different precursor gases. There, because of their decomposition that is locally induced by the electron or the ion beam, a localized deposition of material is induced, with the possibility then to grow micro- and nano-structures of any arbitrary shape.
Finally, the chamber is equipped with a nanomanipulator to attach and lift away small portions of material which can be cut out from a bulk sample and thinned to few tens of nanometers to be observed under a transmission electron microscope.