https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06364-3
Regular Article
Study of microstructures patterned on PTFE using STIM stereoscopic images
1
Ion Implantation Laboratory, Institute of Physics, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul, P.O. Box 15051, Av. Bento Gonçalves 9500, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
2
Graduate Program On Materials Science, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul, Av. Bento Gonçalves 9500, CEP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Received:
12
December
2024
Accepted:
24
April
2025
Published online:
9
June
2025
We investigated microstructures patterned on 25 µm thick polytetrafluoroethylene foils with the scanning transmission ion microscopy (STIM) technique. The microstructures were obtained through the proton beam writing technique employing 2.2 MeV proton beams of about 2 × 2 µm2 with a fluence of 1 × 1015 ions.cm−2. The microstructures were developed with different liquid media including distilled water, ethyl alcohol and low-density oil under 40 kHz ultrasound waves. While the temperature of the media was kept constant over the treatment procedure, the time of etching was varied in order to check the impact of the etching time on the microstructures. The post-etching structures were analyzed with on-axis STIM, scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy. The STIM images based on the proton energy loss spectra were generated by the Oxford Microbeams® Data Acquisition System software. Two different techniques were used in order to obtain STIM stereoscopic images. One of them consists of dividing the proton energy loss spectrum into different energy slices for a fixed angle between the proton beam and the sample’s normal. The other technique is based on the collection of energy loss spectra at different angles. Subsequently, the images were reprojected after rearranging each of the pixels line array, obtained at the different sample rotation angles, into stacked planes. STIM stereoscopic technique is a promising tool for revealing buried microstructures inside materials like polymers. However, further developments are needed to improve its imaging capability.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06364-3.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
