Comment on "effects of focused ion beam milling on the nanomechanical behavior of a molybdenum-alloy single crystal" Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 111915 (2007)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-20-2008

Abstract

A critical comment on the 'Effects of focused ion beam milling on the nanomechanical behavior of a molybdenum-alloy single crystal' is presented. It is clear that when a surface is directly irradiated by orthogonal ion beam, a focused ion beam (FIB) damage layer will form and affect the strength. However, this finding does not provide adequate foundation for raising the question of FIB-induced hardening in nanopillars, given the vast differences between these experiments and procedure used in pillar fabrication. The authors arrive at the conclusion that their FIB damaged layer is different from a ondamaged layer by performing a series of nanoindentation tests on FIB irradiated versus sample surface. The authors then conclude from that data that the results from FIB-machined samples reported up to date are questionable. However, the experimental conditions described in this work are very different from those used in pillar fabrication.

Publication Title

Applied Physics Letters

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