“Low Energy Implantation with Focused Ion Beams”

MAE Graduate Seminar

Speaker: Alex Belianinov

Abstract

Ion implantation is a key capability for a variety of industries. As devices continue to shrink, novel materials enter the manufacturing line, and quantum technologies become more mainstream, traditional implantation methods fall short in delivering energies, ion species, and positional precision necessary. Specifically, lowering the implantation energy while maintaining a nanometer-scale spot size is a technological challenge. This presentation will show an overview of techniques at Sandia National Laboratories’ Ion Beam Facility that allow focused ion implants in the 1-200 keV range for quantum-relevant applications.
Additionally, new developments in sub-1 keV focused ion implants into Si and 2D devices, using a focused ion beam system, validated by atom probe tomography, will be shown. We show that identical results for low-energy ion implants can be achieved either by lowering the column voltage or by decelerating ions with a bias, while maintaining good spatial resolution. Furthermore, our data reveal that standard implant modeling approaches significantly overestimate experimental depth. Finally, we discuss how our results pave the way to maintaining high spatial resolution with low implantation energies.

Bio

Alex Belianinov, Ph.D., M.B.A., is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Alex received his PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Iowa State University in 2012 under the supervision of Patricia Thiel. He moved to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in 2012 as a postdoctoral research associate with Sergei Kalinin and was subsequently onboarded in 2015 at the ORNL’s Center for Nanoscale Materials Sciences as a Strategic Hire. He has received the Microscopy Today Innovation Award and an R&D 100 Award for his work combining machine learning with microscopy techniques. He has served as a DOE BES detailee in 2020-2021 for NSRC SBIR Phase I and II projects. In 2020, he completed an MBA from the University of Tennessee. Alex published over 150 papers with ~5000 citations and an h-index of 40. His professional interests include ion beam nanofabrication, ion implantation, imaging, and data analysis.