Atomic Level Emission Source (ALES) ALES Tech INC. refers to an atomic-sized field emission source, which is also our company's core technology, "Single-Atom Needle Technology". After Academician Tien T. Tsong, a world-class authority in the field of field emission, brought this technology back to Taiwan from the United States, the Surface Science Laboratory he founded deeply cultivated its research at the Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica for over thirty years, with one of its most important academic achievements being the development of the single-atom needle. Single-atom needles can be used for field emission electron beams or ion beams. Atomic-sized electron or ion sources possess the highest brightness and represent the world's most cutting-edge charged particle beam source technology, which can enhance the resolution of semiconductor-related manufacturing process and inspection equipment. Over the past decade or so, many internationally renowned major manufacturers of focused ion beam systems have sought cooperation with the Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, hoping to jointly develop a new generation of focused ion beam systems using single-atom ion sources. However, there is still a long distance between scientific research results and commercialized, mature machines. After evaluation or preliminary cooperative testing by equipment manufacturers, none of the cooperative projects could be sustained to achieve the goals. In view of this, Dr. Wei-Che Chang, the founder of ALES Tech INC., decided in June 2019 to leave the Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, where he had served for nearly ten years, to establish ALES Tech INC., and obtained the patent license for single-atom needle technology from Academia Sinica, with ALES Tech INC. completing the early-stage commercial development of single-atom ion source technology to accelerate the development of the new generation of focused ion beam systems.
Since the establishment of ALES Tech INC., the company has been committed to improving the performance of ion sources and developing related patented technologies. At the same time, many derivative metal tip morphology modification technologies have also been developed. Using these derivative technologies, ALES Tech INC. has developed products such as nanoprobes, microprobes, and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) probes. Among them, the nano probing measurement system (Nano Probing) applied to electrical measurements in advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes requires the use of nanoscale metal tips to perform contact measurements on samples, and ALES Tech INC. can provide the industry's highest specification nanoprobes.