FIB tilting method for thin TEM lamella preparation

Scaling of TEM specimen thickness is vital to avoid overlapped semiconductor device structures due to the shrinking of device geometry and to obtain good high-resolution TEM images. Nevertheless, thinner TEM specimen fabricated by conventional ex-situ lift-out technique is often impeded by amorphization and warping effect. The problems can be resolved by in-situ lift-out technique coupled with lower accelerating energy of FIB but the bottlenecks remain to be solved by conventional ex-situ lift-out methodology. An ex-situ lift-out technique has been developed to prepare thin TEM lamella without warping. The specimens prepared by the so-called single and double holder-tilt method are warping free. It can be coupled with lower FIB voltage for ultrathin lamella fabrication.