The disclosure relates to a method of operating a gas field ion beam system in which the gas field ion beam system comprises an external housing, an internal housing, arranged within the external housing, an electrically conductive tip arranged within the internal housing, a gas supply for supplying one or more gases to the internal housing, the gas supply having a tube terminating within the internal housing, and an extractor electrode having a hole to permit ions generated in the neighborhood of the tip to pass through the hole into the external housing. The method comprises the step of regularly heating the external housing, the internal housing, the electrically conductive tip, the tube and the extractor electrode to a temperature of above 100 C.

There is provided a scanning electron microscope which has a sample chamber capable of being evacuated to a low vacuum. The scanning electron microscope includes an electron gun for emitting an electron beam, an objective lens for focusing the emitted beam onto a sample, and a sample chamber in which the sample is housed. The objective lens includes an inner polepiece, an outer polepiece disposed outside the inner polepiece and facing the sample chamber, at least one through-hole extending through the inner and outer polepieces, and at least one cover member that closes off the through-hole. An opening is formed between the inner polepiece and the outer polepiece. The objective lens causes leakage of magnetic field from the opening toward the sample. The sample chamber has a degree of vacuum lower than that in an inner space that forms an electron beam path inside the inner polepiece.

A sample storage container of the present invention includes: a storage container (100) that stores a sample (6) under an atmosphere different from an atmosphere of an outside; a diaphragm (10) through which a charged particle beam passes through or transmits; a sample stage (103) that is arranged inside the storage container (100) and that is capable of moving a relative position of the sample (6) to the diaphragm (10) in a horizontal direction and in a vertical direction under an atmospheric state where the atmospheric states inside the storage container and outside the storage container are different each other; and an operating section (104) that moves the sample stage (103) from an outside of the storage container (100), wherein the sample storage container is set in a state where the sample (6) is stored in a vacuum chamber of a charged particle beam apparatus.

The present disclosure relates to a gas field ion source having a gun housing, an electrically conductive gun can base attached to the gun housing, an inner tube mounted to the gun can base, the inner tube being made of an electrically isolating ceramic, an electrically conductive tip attached to the inner tube, an outer tube mounted to the gun can base, the outer tube being made of an electrically isolating ceramic, and an extractor electrode attached to the outer tube. The extractor electrode can have an opening for the passage of ions generated in proximity to the electrically conductive tip.

A focused ion beam system has a differentially-pumped vacuum unit and a focused ion beam column, comprising: a vacuum pad, of a porous material, with a suction surface exposed in a way that surrounds the outer edge of a substrate to be processed; a substrate support on which the substrate and vacuum pad are placed, and a vacuum pump for vacuum evacuation using the vacuum pad. The system provides an arrangement in which, while a head of the differentially-pumped vacuum unit partially falls out of the outer edge of the substrate, the suction surface allows an input of air evacuated from a region between the suction surface and the head, and the processing area on a substrate is expanded by allowing the processing with an ion beam to be performed even in the vicinity of the peripheral substrate surface without requiring a large vacuum chamber.

A lens element of a charged particle system comprises an electrode having a central opening. The lens element is configured for functionally cooperating with an aperture array that is located directly adjacent said electrode, wherein the aperture array is configured for blocking 5 part of a charged particle beam passing through the central opening of said electrode. The electrode is configured to operate at a first electric potential and the aperture array is configured to operate at a second electric potential different from the first electric potential. The electrode and the aperture array together form an aberration correcting lens.

A charged particle beam system includes a sample chamber; a pre-evacuation chamber that is connected to the sample chamber; a first evacuation pump that has a first port connected to the sample chamber, and a second port connected to the pre-evacuation chamber; a second evacuation pump that is connected to the pre-evacuation chamber, an evacuation port, and the sample chamber; and a controller. The controller performs when a sample is introduced into the pre-evacuation chamber, a process of causing the second evacuation pump to evacuate the pre-evacuation chamber; a process of making a determination of whether a vacuum degree inside the pre-evacuation chamber has reached a first vacuum degree, based on power of the second evacuation pump; and a process of causing the first evacuation pump to evacuate the pre-evacuation chamber when the vacuum degree inside the pre-evacuation chamber is determined to have reached the first vacuum degree.

According to an embodiment, a plasma processing system is proposed. The plasma processing system includes a processing chamber for plasma; a two-chambered pumping block linked to the chamber through an orifice that creates a particle beam via a pressure difference, with the upper pressure regulated by a connected vacuum pump; a detector stage attached to the pumping block through another orifice and connectable to a vacuum pump to guide the beam through a third orifice; a mass spectrometer connected to the detector stage via the third orifice, featuring an ionizer that ionizes the beam's species by cycling through energy levels in multiple steps; and a shutter installed in the pumping block's path of the particle beam, designed to operate at each energy level step.

In an axisymmetric electron gun structure, a part of gas molecules flowing from a vacuum chamber having relatively low vacuum reach a photoelectric film, causing problems of deterioration of an NEA surface, instability of an emission current, and a reduction in life of the photoelectric film. An electron microscope including an excitation light source; a photoelectric film formed on a transparent substrate; a condensing lens configured to condense excitation light to the photoelectric film; an anode electrode configured to accelerate an electron beam that is generated when the excitation light is condensed and irradiated to the photoelectric film; a first differential exhaust diaphragm provided close to the photoelectric film and having a passage hole off an axis; a second differential exhaust diaphragm provided close to a sample and having a passage hole on an optical axis; and a deflector for trajectory control of the electron beam.

A differential pumping apparatus for creating a high vacuum inside a processing space includes a displacement drive unit configured to move a substrate to be processed or a head, to adjust parallelism and distance between a surface to be processed and a surface of the head. Gap measurement devices are placed at three or more locations along the periphery of the surface of the head to provide distance information. A gap control unit is configured to control the displacement drive unit in response to the distance information between the surface to be processed and the surface adapted to face the surface to be processed, so that the surface to be processed and the surface adapted to face the surface to be processed are parallel.