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 reference sample (41) has a step/terrace structure made of monocrystalline SiC and a surface of each terrace has first or second stack orientation. In the reference sample (41), contrast as difference in lightness and darkness between an image of a terrace with a surface directly under which the first stack orientation lies and an image of a terrace with a surface directly under which the second stack orientation lies changes according to an incident electron angle which is an angle that an electron beam emitted from a scanning electron microscope forms with a perpendicular to the terrace surface. Even when a SiC substrate has an off angle (e.g., from 1 to 8), using an inclined support base (20a) capable of correcting the off angle enables sharp contrast that reflects difference between the first and second stack orientations directly under the surface to be obtained irrespective of the off angle.

System and method for Ultrafast Electron Diffraction (UED) and Microscopy (UEM) configured to image atomic motion in real time with sub-femtosecond temporal resolution. Presented methodology utilizes the interaction of the pump optical pulse with the initial electron pulse that has been gated with the gating optical pulse. The initial electron pulse is generated in the electron microscope by the pulse of auxiliary light. In one case, the pump and gating pulses have attosecond duration and are duplicates of one another. The use of attosecond optical pulse (with frequency spectrum extending over two octaves in the visible and flanking spectral ranges) for optical gating of a pulse of electrons.

An electron beam inspection apparatus, the apparatus including a plurality of electron beam columns, each electron beam column configured to provide an electron beam and detect scattered or secondary electrons from an object, and an actuator system configured to move one or more of the electron beam columns relative to another one or more of the electron beam columns, the actuator system including a plurality of first movable structures at least partly overlapping a plurality of second movable structures, the first and second movable structures supporting the plurality of electron beam columns.

A charged particle beam device includes a charged particle source which emits a charged particle beam radiated on a sample; a condenser lens system which has at least one condenser lens focusing the charged particle beam at a predetermined demagnification; a deflector which is positioned between a condenser lens of a most downstream side and a charged particle source in the condenser lens system, and moves a virtual position of the charged particle source; and a control unit which controls the deflector and the condenser lens system. The control unit controls the deflector to move the virtual position of the charged particle source to a position of suppressing a deviation, which is caused by a change of the demagnification of the condenser lens system, of a center trajectory of the charged particle beam downstream of the condenser lens system.

A system and method for focusing a scanning electron microscope (SEM) comprise acquiring a first SEM image of a sample using a first focus condition, analyzing the first SEM image to determine contrast change measurements, determining a region of interest based on the contrast change measurements, adjusting the SEM from the first focus condition to a second focus condition based at least in part on the region of interest, wherein the first focus condition differs from the second focus condition, and acquiring a second SEM image of the sample using the second focus condition.

A method which can generate a clear image of a specimen by correcting an image drift is disclosed. The image generation method includes: scanning a specimen with an electron beam to generate images; calculating amounts of image drift within specific regions of the respective images; calculating continuous amounts of image drift by interpolation from the amounts of image drift; determining an amount of image drift at each pixel of the images from the continuous amounts of image drift; correcting the images by correcting a brightness of each pixel based on the amount of image drift at each pixel; and generating a synthetic image from the corrected images.

An electron spectroscopy system and method are disclosed. In another aspect, an ultrabright and ultrafast angle-resolved electron spectroscopy system is provided. A further aspect of the present system employs an electron gun, a radio frequency cavity and multiple spectrometers. Yet another aspect uses spectrometers in an aligned manner to deflect and focus electrons emitted by the electron gun. Moreover, an ultrafast laser is coupled to an electron spectroscopy system. A bunch of monochromatic electrons have their energy compressed and reoriented in an additional aspect of the present system. A further aspect of the present electron spectroscopy system employs adaptive and/or adjustable optics to optimize both time and energy compression. Another aspect provides at least two RF lenses or cavities, one before a specimen and one after the specimen.

Techniques for multi-beam scanning transmission charged particle microscopy are disclosed herein. An example apparatus at least includes a charged particle beam column to produce a plurality of charged particle beams and irradiate a specimen with each of the plurality of charged particle beams, and an imaging system to collect charged particles of each of the charged particle beams of the plurality of charged particle beams that traverse the specimen during said irradiation, and to direct each charged particle beam of the plurality of the charged particle beams after traversing the sample onto a detector, where each charged particle beam includes a barycenter, and where the detector is disposed in an intermediate location between a back focal plane and an imaging plane of the imaging system.

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.