NANO-BEAMS (starting from 1.5 M€)

The technology required for focussing of MeV ions differs quite strongly from the technology in electron microscopes. The main reason is the higher mass of ions compared to electrons, requiring stronger focussing fields. Stronger focussing fields require larger focussing equipment which in turn deteriorates the focussing properties. This induces a technological challenge and results in generally larger beam sizes for MeV ions.

We identified the key properties and technological challenges and managed to shift them to the manufacturing side. With the latest ultra-high precision manufacturing made in Germany we can offer ion-beam spot sizes smaller than anything else available on the market. Magnet to sample distances as low as 16 mm become possible with our setups.

Of course the best results require the best ion beams, therefore we supply our nano-beam analysis stations with accelerators from world-leading manufacturers. A special multi-cusp ion source arrangement allows for µA ion-beams on the µm spot-size scale. A collimator reduces this to 10 µm diameter, followed by our high-precision magnetic quadrupole magnets with a demagnification of up to a factor 300 an analysis spot size in the order of 30 nm can be reached with nA ion-currents.