Nanoscale imaging research, which includes x-ray, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and light microscopy, in the FICS Research SCAN Lab is supported by three state-of-the-art, stand-alone systems which were installed in the summer of 2016 through a
recent partnership between UF and TESCAN, a leading manufacturer in electron microscopy.

The new Skyscan 2211 system which enables non-destructive 3D X-ray computed tomography on micron and nano level resolution. 3D tomography can reveal internal structure information of objects such as Printed Circuit boards and microchips with imaging resolution down to few hundreds of nano meters. FICS Research faculty are already developing techniques based on X-ray tomography to do fast and easy PCB reverse engineering, which is currently a very important copyright and security topic for industry and government entities.

Two dual beam systems, the FERA and LYRA, which enable unique nano level imaging and milling capabilities. LYRA is a dual beam system with Gallium Focused Ion Beam (FIB) and Electron Beam columns. The GaFIB can be used for fine milling on many types of samples in a specific range of time. FERA is a Xe-Plasma Focued Ion Beam (FIB) with Electron Beam column. Plasma ion source can reach up to 2µA for the probe current and enables milling rates of up to 50-60 times faster than a regular FIB system. Reverse engineering, failure localization, sample prep for micro or nano probing, etc. are some of the capabilities that will be enabled by these systems. In addition the open source format of the controlling systems on these microscopes provides a platform for computational microscopy where regular microscopy can be changed to intelligent microscopy based on the images and pre-knowledge of the sample.