An automated workpiece processing system including at least one workpiece processing unit, a workpiece holder configured to removably hold a batch of workpieces therein, each workpiece embodying workpiece identifying indicia where the workpiece identifying indicia is a physical representation of a sample held on a respective workpiece, and to interface with the at least one automated workpiece processing unit, and a controller including a memory having a data structure therein that effects, with the workpiece identifying indicia, batch process tracking of each workpiece in the batch of workpieces through the at least one automated workpiece processing unit in a predetermined batch workpiece processing sequence.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a charged particle beam device that exhibits high performance due to the use of vanadium glass coatings, and to provide a method of manufacturing a component for a charged particle beam device. Specifically provided is a charged particle beam device using a vacuum component characterized by comprising a metal container, the interior space of which is evacuated to form a high vacuum, and coating layers formed on the surface on the interior space-side of the metal container, wherein the coating layers are vanadium-containing glass, which is to say an amorphous substance. Coating vanadium glass onto walls of a space where it is desirable to form a high vacuum, for example walls in the vicinity of an electron source, reduces gas discharge in the vicinity of the electron source, and the getter effect of the coating layer induces localized evacuation and enables the formation of an extremely high vacuum, even in spaces having a complex structure, without providing a large high-vacuum pump.

A sample holder capable of limiting X-rays accepted into an X-ray detector is provided. The sample holder is for use in an electron microscope equipped with a polepiece assembly and a semiconductor detector. The sample holder includes: a sample stage on which a sample is held; and a shield plate. When the sample stage has been introduced in the sample chamber of the electron microscope, the shield plate is located between the polepiece assembly and the semiconductor detector.

Some embodiments are directed to an electron microscopy sample support including: a support member; and a metal foil including a porous region. The support member is configured to give structural stability to the metal foil, and the porous region of the metal foil is configured to receive an electron microscopy sample. Also disclosed is a method of manufacturing such an electron microscopy sample support, a method of imaging using such an electron microscopy sample support and an apparatus operable to perform such imaging. The disclosed microscopy specimen support reduces particle motion and/or sample charging in electron microscopy, and thus improve information available from electron micrographs. Appropriately designed and constructed supports may lead to an increased resolution per particle and increased accuracy of angular assignments in 3D reconstructions of, for example, biological specimens, enabling the determination of structures of smaller and more difficult proteins than was previously possible using EM techniques.

The present invention relates to an electron gun for facilitating position adjustment, and an electron microscope including the same, the electron gun improving a vacuum structure so as to easily move a filament block or an electron tip of an electron gun without having bellows for maintaining a vacuum when the center axis of the filament block or the electron tip of the electron gun is mechanically misaligned with the center axis of a anode and a focusing lens.

An ion milling device of the present invention is provided with a tilt stage (8) which is disposed in a vacuum chamber (15) and has a tilt axis parallel to a first axis orthogonal to an ion beam, a drive mechanism (9, 51) which has a rotation axis and a tilt axis parallel to a second axis orthogonal to the first axis and rotates or tilts a sample (3), and a switching unit which enables switching between a state in which the ion beam is applied while the sample is rotated or swung while the tilt stage is tilted, and a state in which the ion beams is applied while the tilt stage is brought into an untilted state and the sample is swung. Consequently, the ion milling device capable of performing cross-section processing and flat processing of the sample in the same vacuum chamber is implemented.

Disclosed herein is a sample holder, a member mounting device, and a charged particle beam apparatus, which are able to secure a compatible configuration for the transfer of a sample between different-type charged particle beam apparatuses while preventing an increase in equipment costs, individually or overall. The charged particle beam apparatus (10) includes a holder unit (13) for removably fastening a sample holder (12) for receiving a sample (S), and a sample stage unit (14) for loading the holder unit (13) in a sample chamber (11). The sample holder (12) includes a sample holding member for receiving a sample (S), a support section for supporting the sample holding member, and a clip disposed on the support section at a position where the sample holding member is disposed.

The present invention relates to an electron gun for facilitating position adjustment, and an electron microscope including the same, the electron gun improving a vacuum structure so as to easily move a filament block or an electron tip of an electron gun without having bellows for maintaining a vacuum when the center axis of the filament block or the electron tip of the electron gun is mechanically misaligned with the center axis of a anode and a focusing lens.

In order to provide an aberration correction system that realizes a charged particle beam of which the anisotropy is reduced or eliminated on a sample surface even in the case where there is magnetic interference between pole stages of an aberration corrector, an correction system includes a line cross position control device (209) which controls a line cross position in the aberration corrector of the charged particle beam so that a designed value and an actually measured value of the line cross position are equal to each other, an image shift amount extraction device (210), and a feedback determination device (211) which determines whether or not changing an excitation amount of the aberration corrector is necessary whether or not changing an excitation amount is necessary from an extracted image shift amount.

There is provided a detector apparatus capable of detecting the position or tilt angle of a sample stage with high resolution and high reliability. The detector apparatus (100) is operative to detect the position or tilt angle of the sample stage (2), and has a potentiometer (10) for detecting the position or tilt angle of the sample stage (2), an encoder (20) for detecting the position or tilt angle of the sample stage (2), and a computing unit (30) for calculating the position or tilt angle of the sample stage (2), based both on an output signal from the potentiometer (10) and on an output signal from the encoder (20).