An electron microscope and method of operating an electron microscope (1) has an electron beam source (11) for producing an electron beam, a noise canceling aperture (12) for detecting a part of the beam, an amplifier (42), an effective value calculating circuit (44) for extracting DC components of the output signal from the amplifier (42), a detector (15) for detecting a signal obtained in response to impingement of the beam on a sample (A), a preamplifier circuit (20), an amplifier circuit (30), a dividing circuit (54) for performing a division based on the output signal from the amplifier circuit (30) and on the output signal from the amplifier (42), and a multiplier circuit (58) for performing multiplication of the output signal from the dividing circuit (54) and the output from the effective value calculating circuit (44).

The present application relates to a method and an apparatus for determining a wavefront of a massive particle beam, including the steps of: (a) recording two or more images of a reference structure using the massive particle beam under different recording conditions; (b) generating point spread functions for the two or more recorded images with a modified reference image of the reference structure; and (c) performing a phase reconstruction of the massive particle beam on the basis of the generated point spread functions and the different recording conditions, for the purposes of determining the wavefront.

A plasma processing apparatus includes a processing chamber, a conductive annular member, a microwave radiating mechanism and a plasma detector. The processing chamber has a ceiling plate with an opening. The conductive annular member is disposed at the opening while being insulated from the ceiling plate. The microwave radiating mechanism is disposed on the ceiling plate to be coaxial with a center of the conductive annular member and configured to radiate microwaves into the processing chamber. Further, a plasma detector is connected to the conductive annular member and configured to detect a state of generated plasma.

Disclosed herein is a method for determining the endpoint of an etch operation used for forming high aspect ratio features and/or over low open area (<1%) on a substrate in a processing chamber. The method begins by obtaining a reference emission curve. An etch operation is performed on a patterned substrate. A plasma optical emission intensity is measured for each of the etch cycles. A differential curve between the reference emission and the plasma optical emissions is calculated. And endpoint is determined for the etch operation on the first substrate based on an inflection point detection or other unique features through pattern recognition in the differential curve for stopping the etch of the first substrate.

The disclosure relates to a method of determining an energy width of a charged particle beam, comprising the steps of providing a charged particle beam, directing said beam towards a specimen, and forming an energy-dispersed beam from a flux of charged particles transmitted through the specimen. As defined herein, the method comprises the steps of providing a slit element in a slit plane, and using said slit element for blocking a part of said energy-dispersed beam, as well as the step of modifying said energy-dispersed beam at the location of said slit plane in such a way that said energy dispersed beam is partially blocked at said slit element. The unblocked part of said energy-dispersed beam is imaged and an intensity gradient of said imaged energy-dispersed beam is determined, with which the energy width of the charged particle beam can be determined.

A measurement method includes: (a) measuring an emission intensity for each wavelength of light detected from a plasma generated in a plasma processing apparatus at each different exposure time by a light receiving element; (b) specifying, with respect to each of a plurality of different individual wavelength ranges that constitutes a predetermined wavelength range, a distribution of the emission intensity in the individual wavelength range measured at an exposure time at which an emission intensity of a predetermined wavelength included in the individual wavelength range becomes an emission intensity within a predetermined range; (c) selecting a distribution of the emission intensity in the individual wavelength range from the distribution of the emission intensity specified in (b); and (d) outputting the distribution of the emission intensity selected for each individual wavelength range.

The invention relates to a method of examining a sample using a charged particle microscope, comprising the steps of providing a charged particle beam, as well as a sample, and scanning said charged particle beam over at least part of said sample. A first detector is used for obtaining measured detector signals corresponding to emissions of a first type from the sample at a plurality of sample positions. According to the method, a set of data class elements is provided, wherein each data class element relates an expected detector signal to a corresponding sample information value. The measured detector signals are processed, and processing comprises comparing said measured detector signals to said set of data class elements; determining at least one probability that said measured detector signals belong to a certain one of said set of data class elements; and assigning at least one sample information value and said at least one probability to each of the plurality of sample positions. Finally, sample information values and corresponding probability can be represented in data.

In a particle beam irradiation system, upon receipt of a signal to stop irradiation of a charged particle beam, the signal outputted from a scanning controller, an accelerator and transport system controller stops emission of the charged particle beam from a charged particle beam generation unit to the irradiation unit, the scanning controller determines, according to an irradiation dose of the charged particle beam at one of a plurality of spots that has been irradiated with the charged particle beam until immediately before the accelerator and transport system controller stops the emission, the irradiation dose measured by the irradiation dose monitor from when the signal to stop the irradiation is outputted, whether or not to skip the irradiation of the charged particle beam at another one of the plurality of spots subsequent to the one of the plurality of spots, so as to control the accelerator and transport system controller.

A method of inspecting a wafer quality includes injecting ions into a wafer using an ion beam in an ion implantation process, collecting data about the ion beam by using a Faraday cup, extracting first data from the data about the ion beam, extracting a wafer section from the first data, calculating a feature value of a wafer from the wafer section, and evaluating a quality of the wafer by comparing the feature value with a predetermined threshold or range.

An optical pyrometer having a coaxial light guide delivers laser radiation through optics to heat a localized area on a sample, and simultaneously collects optical radiation from the sample to perform temperature measurement of the heated area. Inner and outer light guides can comprise the core and inner cladding, respectively, of a double-clad fiber (DCF), or can be formed using a combination of optical fibers in one or more coaxial bundles. Coaxial construction and shared optics facilitate alignment of the centers of the heated and observed areas on the sample. The heated area can be on the order of micrometers when using a single-mode optical fiber core as the inner light guide. The system can be configured to heat small samples within a vacuum system of charged-particle beam microscopes such as electron microscopes. A method for using the invention in a microscope is also provided.