A Stress Relief Method to Control Warping of Focused Ion Beam Prepared Membranes for Transmission Electron Microscopy

The continued decrease in microelectronic feature dimensions has led to a reliance on the focused ion beam (FIB) for site-specific transmission electron microscopy (TEM) specimen preparation. To maximize the capabilities of the FIB, methods must be developed to consistently produce specimens thin enough to generate TEM lattice images. The limiting factor in producing quality TEM specimens by either the traditional or lift-out method is the final thickness of the specimen.