Recent insights and improvements in the "flying cube"-strategy for FIB cross-sectioning

The novel focused ion beam (FIB) cross-section preparation strategy of "flying cube", which has been presented in July 2024 (IPFA, Singapore), allows time savings of 60-85%, and enables high-quality cross-sections even for samples with thick non-conductive or poorly conductive layers and samples with cavities or pronounced topographies. Thereby, it gets along with no deposition of impurities on the wafer surface. In this work, the recent investigations to quantify the obviously better quality of the cross section by determining the side wall damage compared to the standard strategies (i.e. TEM lamellae analyses and Monte Carlo simulations) together with further aspects of practical relevance will be presented.