The effects of dwell time on focused ion beam machining of silicon

•Investigation of the dwell time effect on Si damage through Raman spectroscopy.•Effect of dwell time on surface topographies of Si through AFM measurements.•Justification of produced damage based on catalyst behaviour of implanted Ga. In this study, the effects of dwell time on Ga+ focused ion beam machining at 30keV for different milling currents were investigated. The surface topographies were analysed using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and the substrate structures were investigated by means of Raman spectroscopy. It has been observed that by increasing dwell time the total sputtering yield was increased even though the total dose was remained the same. Also the silicon damage by ion bombardment is reduced as the dwell time is increased. This is mainly due to catalyst behaviour of Ga inside Si which over a period of hours causes recrystallization of Si at room temperature by lowering the activation energy for crystallization.