Recently, relevant advances on graphene as a building block of integrated circuits (ICs) have been demonstrated. Graphene growth and device fabrication related processing has been steadily and intensively powered due to commercial interest; however, there are many challenges associated with the incorporation of graphene into commercial applications which includes challenges associated with the synthesis of this material. Specifically, the controlled deposition of single layer large single crystal graphene on arbitrary supports, is particularly challenging. Previously, we have reported the first demonstration of the transformation of focused ion beam induced deposition of carbon (FIBID-C) into patterned graphitic layers by metal-assisted thermal treatment (Ni foils). In this present work, we continue exploiting the FIBID-C approach as a route for graphene deposition. Here, thin patterned Fe layers are used for the catalysis of graphenization and graphitization. We demonstrate the formation of high quality single and few layer graphene, which evidences, the possibility of using Fe as a catalyst for graphene deposition. The mechanism is understood as the minute precipitation of atomic carbon after supersaturation of some iron carbides formed under a high temperature treatment. As a consequence of the complete wetting of FIBID-C and patterned Fe layers, which enable graphene growth, the as-deposited patterns do not preserve their original shape after the thermal treatment.

This work gives an illustration of the viability of FEBID to fabricate magnetic nano- and micro-structures and it demonstrates that by means of a combination of MOKE microscopy and MFM, one is able to analyze the size and shape effects in individual magnetic cobalt structures. With the help of our magnetic and functional study, we are able to demonstrate that by using FEBID, cobalt of uniform thickness and magnetic response can be deposited over several micron-size areas, establishing a most crucial ingredient of reliable structure and device fabrication. Furthermore, we show the suitability of FEBID to fabricate functional and complex 3-dimensional magnetic structures. The issue of unintended secondary deposits in FEBID is discussed, and a Xe-ion milling post-treatment for its removal is proposed and demonstrated as a successful pathway towards the fabrication of functionally independent magnetic nano-structures.

Focused ion beam (FIB) has found a steady and growing use as a tool for fabrication, particularly in the length-scale of micrometres down to nanometres. Traditionally more commonly used for materials characterisation, FIB is continually finding new research areas in a growing number of laboratories. For example, over the last ten years the number of FIB instruments in the U.K. alone has gone from single figures, largely supplied by a single manufacturer, to many tens of instruments supplied by several competing manufacturers. Although the smaller of the two research areas, FIB fabrication has found itself to be incredibly powerful in the modification and fabrication of devices for all kinds of experimentation. Here we report our use of FIB in the production of Superconducting QUantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) and other closely related devices for metrological applications. This is an area ideally suited to FIB fabrication as the required precision is very high, the number of required devices is relatively low, but the flexibility of using FIB means that a large range of small-batch, and often unique, devices can be constructed quickly and with very short lead times.

The purity of a structure made with electron beam induced deposition (EBID) is a the major concern when creating micro and nano-scale functionalities, for example for rapid prototyping. Substantial research focuses on the improvements of the purity using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) based precursors. However, from a practical point of view, many other aspects of a precursor are very relevant in the design of a process and the actual use of a tool for EBID. To a large extent, these precursor-related characteristics will determine whether or not a  precursor can successfully be applied. Some of these characteristics include: vapor pressure range, transition behavior, chemical stability, pyrolitic thresholds, release of corrosive ligands during deposition, toxicity, commercial availability, compatibility with the instrument and operator safety. These characteristic are discussed in more detail here in order to understand what an ideal EBID precursor may be. Although some parameters such as toxicity or flammability seem less important, in practice they can be a road block for application unless the main instrument, such as a regular scanning electron microscope (SEM), is adapted accordingly.