Focused Ion Beams, Atomic Force Microscopy, and Nanopore Sensing
This research community develops and applies high-precision beam and probe technologies to image, fabricate, and analyze matter at the atomic and molecular scale. It serves semiconductor manufacturing, materials science, and single-molecule biological analysis.
The work centers on focused ion beam (FIB) systems, particularly helium ion microscopy and beam-induced deposition, for nanofabrication and imaging. It includes atomic force microscopy (AFM) for surface characterization and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography for semiconductor patterning. A significant strand involves solid-state nanopores for single-molecule detection and sequencing, alongside mass spectrometry and ion irradiation studies. These methods are applied to thin films, silicon nitride, and metallic surfaces, with specific focus on beam-induced deposition and lithographic techniques for creating nanostructures.
The community is most prominent in helium research, where it constitutes 0.6% of all tracked helium papers, and in tungsten research, accounting for 0.4% of that element’s output. Silicon and gold also feature heavily, with 869 and 692 papers respectively, representing 0.2% and 0.3% of their respective fields.
The community comprises 8,060 papers, publishing primarily in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Nanotechnology, and Applied Physics Letters. Recent work focuses on sub-10 nm silicon-based nanopores for single-protein detection, tin-oxo nanocluster photoresists for extreme ultraviolet lithography, and computational tools for nanopore engineering.