Fabrication and development of high brightness nano-aperture ion source

•A modified nano-aperture ion source (NAIS) has been fabricated by MEMS technology.•The reduced brightness for this modified NAIS was obtained to be 9.1 × 103 A/(m2srV) for an Ar+ beam.•This NAIS is a potential candidate to be a part of a sub-10 nm proton beam writing (PBW) system.

Nano-aperture ion source (NAIS) is a potential candidate to be a part of a sub-10 nm proton beam writing (PBW) system. To improve the performance of our prototype NAIS, currently we have modified the fabrication process. Through integrating the ionization chamber into the silicon nitride membranes and reducing the size of double-aperture, we have improved the overall performance of NAIS. The reduced brightness from this modified NAIS was obtained to be 9.1 × 103 A/(m2srV) for an Ar+ beam. Limitations and further improvements of the current design are discussed in the paper.

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