Nathan, If you can, you might get better advice by explaining what you want to build in more detail. FIB for microfluidics sounds like overkill. There's almost certainly a better, cheaper way to get what you want. - Kevin On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Nathan McCorklewrote: > Hi Brian, > yesterday I sat down with the FIB guy I just met and he went over most of > the instrument and principals, so yes defocusing would help I think. I'm > making 1-50 micron wide channels, but I've heard that corners can cause > pressure drops in fluidic channels (which I aim to make) which can cause > salts and proteins to crystallize and build up potentially even blocking > the channel. > > I don't know what undulation 'frequency' would be best, but I figure I > should start by not seeing anything visible at 500X optical magnification, > so what can you resolve at that mag, I'd say ballpark 0.3 microns. > > > On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 3:22 PM, Brian Stahl wrote: > >> Dear Nathan, >> >> I'm not a FIB expert but I have used an FEI Helios Dualbeam a little bit; I >> think you should be able to defocus the ion beam slightly to blur/smooth >> edges during patterning. I would think that an isotropic chemical etch >> after patterning would also smooth out some edge roughness (potentially at >> the expense of overall resolution). What feature size are you trying to >> pattern that you're worried about LER? >> >> Best regards, >> >> Brian >> >> -- >> Brian C. Stahl >> Graduate Student Researcher >> UCSB Materials Research Laboratory >> brian.stahl@gmail.com / bstahl@mrl.ucsb.edu >> Cell: (805) 748-5839 >> Office: MRL 3117A >> >> >> On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 3:30 AM, Nathan McCorkle wrote: >> >> > I am working on microfluidics and have the opportunity to use an older >> FEI >> > FIB. My concern this whole time has been to reduce jagged edges by not >> > using a rastered master, originally I was thinking of building my own >> 405nm >> > laser cutter that wouldn't pulse the beam while it traced my lines. >> > >> > With the FIB I'm thinking I could master gold-sputtered glass or quartz, >> > then do contact lithography. Since the FIB does rastering, I'm again >> > concerned with nanometer jaggies. Is there some way I can blur the >> > lithography step a bit to smooth the edges? Or maybe make features >> smaller >> > than they should be, then chemically etch the master for a brief time? >> > >> > -- >> > -Nathan >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Hosted by the MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange, the country's leading >> > provider of MEMS and Nanotechnology design and fabrication services. >> > Visit us at http://www.mems-exchange.org >> > >> > Want to advertise to this community? See http://www.memsnet.org >> > >> > To unsubscribe: >> > http://mail.mems-exchange.org/mailman/listinfo/mems-talk >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> Hosted by the MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange, the country's leading >> provider of MEMS and Nanotechnology design and fabrication services. >> Visit us at http://www.mems-exchange.org >> >> Want to advertise to this community? See http://www.memsnet.org >> >> To unsubscribe: >> http://mail.mems-exchange.org/mailman/listinfo/mems-talk >> > > > > -- > -Nathan > _______________________________________________ > Hosted by the MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange, the country's leading > provider of MEMS and Nanotechnology design and fabrication services. > Visit us at http://www.mems-exchange.org > > Want to advertise to this community? See http://www.memsnet.org > > To unsubscribe: > http://mail.mems-exchange.org/mailman/listinfo/mems-talk _______________________________________________ Hosted by the MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange, the country's leading provider of MEMS and Nanotechnology design and fabrication services. Visit us at http://www.mems-exchange.org Want to advertise to this community? See http://www.memsnet.org To unsubscribe: http://mail.mems-exchange.org/mailman/listinfo/mems-talk