Patent 7321118 was granted and assigned to ALIS Corporation on January, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Scanning Transmission Ion Microscope. The microscope includes a bright helium ion source to generate an ion beam and a focusing electrostatic optical column to focus the ion beam. A translation stage supports a sample to receive the focused ion beam and a detector responds to ions transmitted through the sample to generate a signal from which properties of the sample may be displayed.