Once lowered, the wafer is lifted off the fingers by supports protruding up in front and back of the FIB.
To see the FIB in action, let's use virtual reality to "fade away" the front wafer support. The FIB emits a finely focused beam of Ga ions that are scanned in a TV-like pattern across the center of the wafer. Where the Ga beam strikes the wafer surface, it will knock an occasional crystal atom out of place. We hope these disturbances will create sites where the MBE atoms will preferentially collect, producing layer growth only where we want it.
