Semiconductor manufacturing technology nodes will evolve to the 22, 15, and 11 nm generations in the next few years. For semiconductor nanomachining applications, further beam spot size scaling is required beyond what is capable by present generation Ga(+) focused ion beam technology. As a result, continued Ga(+) beam scaling and/or alternative beam technology innovations will be required. In this work, several alternative ion beam technologies are explored and compared to Ga(+) beam for key nanomachining and substrate interaction attributes. First, thorough Monte Carlo simulations were conducted with various ion species incident on silicon and copper. Additionally, silicon and copper substrates were experimentally exposed to ion beams of helium, neon, and gallium. These substrates were subsequently analyzed to determine the sputter yields and subsurface damage. (C) 2010 American Vacuum Society. [DOI: 10.1116/1.3511509]