A method includes operating a multiple particle beam system at different working points. The numerical aperture can be set for each of the working points in such a way that the resolution of the multiple particle beam system is optimal. In the process, the beam pitch between adjacent individual particle beams on the sample to be scanned is kept constant as a boundary condition. There are no mechanical reconfigurations of the system whatsoever for the purposes of varying the numerical aperture.

A fast method of imaging a 2D sample with a multi-beam particle microscope includes the following steps: providing a layer of the 2D sample; determining a feature size of features included in the layer; determining a pixel size based on the determined feature size in the layer; determining a beam pitch size between individual beams in the layer based on the determined pixel size; and imaging the layer of the 2D sample with a setting of the multi-beam particle microscope based on the determined pixel size and based on the determined beam pitch size.

An improved charged particle beam inspection apparatus, and more particularly, a particle beam inspection apparatus for detecting a thin device structure defect is disclosed. An improved charged particle beam inspection apparatus may include a charged particle beam source to direct charged particles to a location of a wafer under inspection over a time sequence. The improved charged particle beam apparatus may further include a controller configured to sample multiple images of the area of the wafer at difference times over the time sequence. The multiple images may be compared to detect a voltage contrast difference or changes to identify a thin device structure defect.

A method for electron microscopy comprises: adjusting at least one of an electron beam and an image beam in such a way that off-axial aberrations inflicted on at least one of the electron beam and the image beam are minimized, the adjusting performed by using a beam adjusting component to obtain at least one modified image beam, wherein the adjusting comprises applying both shifting and tilting to at least one of the electron beam and the image beam and wherein the amount of tilting of at least one of the electron beam and the image beam depends on the amount of shifting of at least one of the electron beam and the image beam respectively and wherein the amount of tilting is computed based on at least one of coma and astigmatism introduced as a consequence of the shift.

The present disclosure discloses a transmission electron microscope in-situ chip and a preparation method thereof. The transmission electron microscope in-situ chip includes a transmission electron microscope high-resolution in-situ gas phase heating chip, a transmission electron microscope high-resolution in-situ liquid phase heating chip and a transmission electron microscope in-situ electrothermal coupling chip. The transmission electron microscope high-resolution in-situ gas phase heating chip and the transmission electron microscope high-resolution in-situ liquid phase heating chip are respectively suitable for gas samples and liquid samples, and the transmission electron microscope in-situ electrothermal coupling chip realizes the multi-functional embodiment of electrothermal coupling. The three transmission electron microscope in-situ chips have the advantages of high resolution and low sample drift rate.

The present application relates to an apparatus for determining a position of at least one element on a photolithographic mask, said apparatus comprising: (a) at least one scanning particle microscope comprising a first reference object, wherein the first reference object is disposed on the scanning particle microscope in such a way that the scanning particle microscope can be used to determine a relative position of the at least one element on the photolithographic mask relative to the first reference object; and (b) at least one distance measuring device, which is embodied to determine a distance between the first reference object and a second reference object, wherein there is a relationship between the second reference object and the photolithographic mask.

The present application relates to an apparatus for determining a position of at least one element on a photolithographic mask, said apparatus comprising: (a) at least one scanning particle microscope comprising a first reference object, wherein the first reference object is disposed on the scanning particle microscope in such a way that the scanning particle microscope can be used to determine a relative position of the at least one element on the photolithographic mask relative to the first reference object; and (b) at least one distance measuring device, which is embodied to determine a distance between the first reference object and a second reference object, wherein there is a relationship between the second reference object and the photolithographic mask.

A particle beam system and, such as a multi-beam particle microscope, can have a current intensity of individual particle beams that is flexibly set over large value ranges without structural modifications. The particle beam system can include a condenser lens system, a pre-multi-lens array with a specific pre-counter electrode and a pre-multi-aperture plate, and a multi-lens array. The system can includes a controller to supply adjustable excitations to the condenser lens system and the pre-counter electrode so that the charged particles are incident on the pre-multi-aperture plate in telecentric manner.

The present disclosure hereinafter proposes a charged particle beam device and a method for adjusting a charged particle beam device which aim to appropriately set device conditions independently of a state of a sample. The present disclosure proposes a method and a system for adjusting contrast and brightness of an image, comprising: adjusting offset (step 112) of a signal processing device of the charged particle beam device so that the brightness of a pattern in an image obtained by scanning with a first charged particle beam (first intermittent condition beam) becomes a predetermined value; and adjusting a gain (step 114) of the signal processing device so that the brightness of a pattern in an image obtained by scanning with a second charged particle beam, which is a pulse beam (second intermittent condition beam) different from the first charged particle beam in at least one of irradiation time, irradiation distance, interval time between irradiation points, and distance between irradiation points, becomes a predetermined value.

The invention relates to a method for electron microscopy. The method comprises providing an electron microscope, generating an electron beam and an image beam, adjusting one of the beam and of the beam and the image beam to reduce off-axial aberrations and correcting a diffraction pattern of the resulting modified beam. The invention also relates to a method for reducing throughput time in a sample image acquisition session in transmission electron microscopy. The method comprises providing an electron microscope, generating a beam and an image beam, adjusting one of the two to reduce off-axial aberrations and filtering the resulting modified image beam. The invention further relates to an electron microscope and to a non-transient computer-readable medium with a computer program for carrying out the methods.