Feb 22 2007
The Elion™ Dual Detection Platform, El-Mul Technologies’ revolutionary electron and ion beam hybrid detector, has been chosen by a leading FIB/SEM instrument manufacturer for integration into its advanced line of 2007 products.
The patent-pending Elion platform has already resulted in a new industry standard for secondary ion and electron detection in FIB/SEM instruments, and brings a new level of detection efficiency and versatility to dual beam instruments.
The Elion produces unsurpassed secondary ion imaging quality at much lower currents, greatly reducing sample damage. This means that the ion beam can now be used to perform routine sample imaging, where its high resolution and unique material contrast capabilities provide valuable diagnostic input for the operator. Until now, ion beams have been used widely for sample manipulation, but rarely for imaging because of the associated sample damage.
“We saw the lack of an integrated secondary ion detector as a serious obstacle to the advancement of ion-based imaging and dual beam tools, so we decided to engineer the ideal solution,” said Dr. Armin Schon, CEO of El-Mul Technologies, one of the principal developers of the platform. “Our Elion dual detection standard is the one to beat.”
Current generation FIB/SEM dual beam instruments use separate chamber devices in order to detect ions and electrons that emerge from samples.
Redundant detectors are a burden to chamber resources and space. Also, these detectors quickly lose their efficiency under secondary ion bombardment, which in turn severely reduces image quality. Prior detector combination attempts have failed, due to short operational lifetimes and low sensitivity for secondary ions.
El-Mul’s Elion is the first commercial platform to combine ion and electron mode detection in a single device without compromising either mode. Elion's proprietary ion converter is highly efficient for secondary ions, providing a 10- to 100-fold improvement in ion detection. At the same time, the converter is completely transparent to secondary electrons in electron beam mode, so no conversion noise is added to the SE image. Elion’s design also significantly improves SE detection over current chamber devices. Finally, during scanning, only Elion’s ion converter is exposed to ion bombardment, which results in longer detector operating lifetimes at peak performance.
The Elion is a fully customized system with field replaceable ‘plug-in’ components, designed to dramatically reduce the cost of maintenance. Because it occupies the ETD slot in the instrument, it also economizes on chamber space, ports and video electronics.