Focused ion-beam tomography

The focused ion beam (FIB) has become an important too] in materials science for studying and modifying materials systems at the micro and nanometer levels. The technique, due to its ability to perform precision in-situ milling, has been extended to studying three-dimensional structural and chemical relationships. With the help of computer algorithms for processing data and graphics packages for display, three-dimensional systems can easily be reconstructed and the structure interrogated to obtain both qualitative and quantitative information. It is possible to study features at spatial resolutions at the tens-of-nanometers level and volumes with dimensions of up to tens of microns. This allows the reconstruction of many systems in the size range important to nanotechnology. Practical aspects of FIB tomography will be presented, emphasizing data collection, image processing, creating three-dimensional volumes, and extracting quantitative information.