Gas-assisted femtosecond pulsed laser machining: A high-throughput alternative to focused ion beam for creating large, high-resolution cross sections

Cross sectioning is a critical sample preparation technique used in a wide range of applications, that enables investigation of buried layers and subsurface features or defects. State-of-the-art cross-sectioning methods, each have their own pros and cons, but generally suffer from a tradeoff between throughput and accuracy. Mechanical methods are fast but lack accuracy. On the other hand, ion-based methods, such as focused ion beam (FIB), offer high resolutions but are slow. Lasers, which can potentially improve this tradeoff, face multiple challenges that include creation of heat affected zones (HAZs), undesirably large spot size as well as material redeposition. In this work, we utilized, for the first time, a femtosecond pulsed laser, which has been shown to cause minimal to zero HAZ, for rapid creation of large cross sections that are comparable with FIB cross sections in quality. The laser was integrated with a targeted CO(2) gas delivery system for redeposition control and beam tail curtailing, and a hard mask for top surface protection and further shrinkage of the effective spot size. The performance of the proposed system is showcased through real world examples that compare the throughput and quality resulted from the laser and FIB cross sectioning techniques.