Toward Autonomous Materials Processing in the Plasma Focused Ion Beam

作者：Jayden Grunde, Renae gannon, Antonino DiMaggio, Steven R. Spurgeon · 发表于：Microscopy and Microanalysis · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1093/mam/ozag053.949 · 研究领域：Plasma Diagnostics and Applications、Fusion materials and technologies、Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications

Autonomous materials processing is beginning to redefine the future of advanced manufacturing. Laser and ion processing specifically stand to be transformed by autonomous workflows that can calibrate and optimize processing over long-term campaigns, increasing throughput, reducing cost, and ensuring the quality of manufactured devices. Plasma focused ion beam (PFIB) instruments can serve as a model nanoscale factory to build out autonomous workflows. With nano-scale milling and deposition capabilities, these instruments are uniquely equipped for the creation of nanostructures [1], and sample preparation for further analysis, such as uniform, electron transparent lamella for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) [2]. Ion beam alignment and milling parameters determine the quality of milled samples, affecting the performance of manufactured microstructures and the accuracy of TEM analysis. However, current beam calibration methods are predominantly manual and take an expert up to a day to complete. Consequently, most FIBs do not meet the bi-weekly calibration standard recommended by experts. On a multiple ion species PFIB, milling parameters are designed for Xe ions on Si samples due to the impact of the semi-conductor industry and are rarely, if ever, adjusted by operators, resulting in sub-optimal results for most ion species and materials. Here we discuss autonomous calibration of beam stigmation and focus on a dual-beam PFIB-SEM with a technique involving segmenting and an...