An ion beam is a stream of charged particles, which has many uses in electronics manufacturing (principally ion implantation) and other industries. Today's ion beam sources are typically derived from the mercury vapor thrusters developed by NASA in the 1960s. This article presents a typical manufacturing process of an electronic assembly. ... Ion implantation is a materials engineering process by which ions of a material can be implanted into another solid, thereby changing the physical properties of the solid. ... The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which was established in 1958, is the agency responsible for the public space program of the United States of America. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

One type of ion beam source, the duoplasmatron operates as follows: a cathode filament emits electrons into a vacuum chamber. A gas such as Argon is introduced in very small quantities into the chamber, where it becomes charged or ionized through interactions with the free electrons from the cathode, forming a plasma. The plasma is then accelerated through a series of at least two highly charged grids, and becomes an ion beam, moving at fairly high speed from the aperture of the device. Diagram of a copper cathode In chemistry a cathode is the electrode of an electrochemical cell at which reduction occurs. ... A filament is a fine, thinly spun thread, fiber, or wire. ... Categories: Substubs ... General Name, Symbol, Number argon, Ar, 18 Chemical series noble gases Group, Period, Block 18, 3, p Appearance colorless Atomic mass 39. ... Electric charge is a fundamental property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interactions. ... ... The word plasma has a Greek root which means to be formed or molded (the word plastic shares this root). ... In photography, the aperture defines the size of the opening in the lens, which in advanced cameras can be adjusted to control the amount of light reaching the film or digital sensor (CCD or CMOS). ...

Ion beams can be used for sputtering, and for ion beam etching. Sputtering is a physical process whereby atoms in a solid target material are ejected into the gas phase due to bombardment of the material by energetic ions. ...

Ion beam etching

Ion beam etching is a technique conceptually similar to sandblasting, but using individual atoms in an ion beam to ablate a target. Sandblasting is a generic term for the process of smoothing, shaping and cleaning a hard surface by forcing solid particles across that surface at high speeds. ... Ablation is defined as the removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes. ...

In a typical use in semiconductor manufacturing, a mask is used to expose a layer of photoresist on a substrate such as a silicon dioxide or gallium arsenide wafer. The photoresist is developed, and the unexposed portions are removed in a chemical process, leaving a pattern on the surface of the wafer. The wafer is then placed in a vacuum chamber, and exposed to the ion beam. The impact of the ions erodes the target, abrading away the areas not covered by the photoresist. Nasas Glenn Research Center clean room. ... Masks in a Guatemalan Market Teen reading a book, while wearing a dinosaur mask A mask is a piece of material or kit worn on the face. ... Photoresist is a light sensitive material used in several industrial processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving to form a patterned coating on a surface. ... The word substrate can mean the following: In biochemistry, a substrate is a molecule which is acted upon by an enzyme. ... The chemical compound silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is the oxide of silicon, chemical formula SiO2. ... This article is about the chemical compound. ... Wafer can refer to more than one thing. ... Categories: Substubs ...

Ion beams are also used in materials science to thin samples or specific regions of samples for transmission electron microscope analysis. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is an imaging technique whereby a beam of electrons is focused onto a specimen causing an enlarged version to appear on a fluorescent screen or layer of photographic film (see electron microscope), or can be detected by a CCD camera. ...