The invention relates to charged particle beam generator comprising a charged particle source for generating a charged particle beam, a collimator system comprising a collimator structure with a plurality of collimator electrodes for collimating the charged particle beam, a beam source vacuum chamber comprising the charged particle source, and a generator vacuum chamber comprising the collimator structure and the beam source vacuum chamber within a vacuum, wherein the collimator system is positioned outside the beam source vacuum chamber. Each of the beam source vacuum chamber and the generator vacuum chamber may be provided with a vacuum pump.

According to one aspect of the present invention, an electron beam irradiation apparatus includes a photoelectric surface configured to receive irradiation of excitation light on a side of a front surface, and generate electron beams from a side of a back surface; a blanking aperture array mechanism provided with passage holes corresponding to the electron beams and configured to perform deflection control on each of the plurality of electron beams passing through the passage holes; and an adjustment mechanism configured to adjust at least one of an orbit of transmitted light that passes through at least one of arrangement objects including the photoelectric surface, the blanking aperture array mechanism, and the limit aperture substrate up to the stage and reaches the stage, among an irradiated excitation light, and an orbit of the electron beams, wherein the arrangement objects shield at least a part of the transmitted light.

A charged particle buncher includes a series of spaced apart electrodes arranged to generate a shaped electric-field. The series includes a first electrode, a last electrode and one or more intermediate electrodes. The charged particle buncher includes a waveform device attached to the electrodes and configured to apply a periodic potential waveform to each electrode independently in a manner so as to form a quasi-electrostatic time varying potential gradient between adjacent electrodes and to cause spatial distribution of charged particles that form a plurality of nodes and antinodes. The nodes have a charged particle density and the antinodes have substantially no charged particle density, and the nodes and the antinodes are formed from a charged particle beam with an energy greater than 500 keV.

A test control port (TCP) includes a state machine SM, an instruction register IR, data registers DRs, a gating circuit and a TDO MX. The SM inputs TCI signals and outputs control signals to the IR and to the DR. During instruction or data scans, the IR or DRs are enabled to input data from TDI and output data to the TDO MX and the top surface TDO signal. The bottom surface TCI inputs may be coupled to the top surface TCO signals via the gating circuit. The top surface TDI signal may be coupled to the bottom surface TDO signal via TDO MX. This allows concatenating or daisy-chaining the IR and DR of a TCP of a lower die with an IR and DR of a TCP of a die stacked on top of the lower die.

A charged particle multi-beam device includes a charged particle source, a collimator lens, a multi-light-source forming unit, and a reduction projection optical system. The multi-light-source forming unit has first to third porous electrodes disposed side by side in an optical axis direction. A plurality of holes for causing the multi-beams to pass is formed in each of the first to third porous electrodes. The first porous electrode and the third porous electrode have the same potential and the second porous electrode has potential different from the potential of the first porous electrode and the third porous electrode. A diameter of the holes on the second porous electrode is formed larger further away from an optical axis such that a surface on which the multi-light sources are located is formed in a shape convex to the charged particle source side.

The present disclosure proposes a crossover-forming deflector array of an electro-optical system for directing a plurality of electron beams onto an electron detection device. The crossover-forming deflector array includes a plurality of crossover-forming deflectors positioned at or at least near an image plane of a set of one or more electro-optical lenses of the electro-optical system, wherein each crossover-forming deflector is aligned with a corresponding electron beam of the plurality of electron beams.

Provided is a focused ion beam processing apparatus including: an ion source; a sample stage a condenser lens; an aperture having a slit in a straight line shape; a projection lens and the sample stage, wherein, in a transfer mode, by Köhler illumination, with an applied voltage of the condenser lens when a focused ion beam is focused on a main surface of the projection lens scaled to be 100, the applied voltage is set to be less than 100 and greater than or equal to 80; a position of the aperture is set such that the focused ion beam is masked by the aperture with the one side of the aperture at a distance greater than 0 μm and equal to or less than 500 μm from a center of the focused ion beam; and the shape of the slit is transferred onto the sample.

An etching method is performed in a state where a substrate is placed on a substrate support provided in a chamber of a plasma processing apparatus. In the etching method, radio-frequency power is supplied to generate plasma from a gas in the chamber. Subsequently, a negative DC voltage is applied to a lower electrode of the substrate support during the supplying of the radio-frequency power to etch the substrate with positive ions from plasma. Subsequently, the applying of the negative DC voltage to the lower electrode and the supplying of the radio-frequency power are stopped to generate negative ions. Subsequently, a positive DC voltage is applied to the lower electrode in a state where the supply of the radio-frequency power is stopped to supply the negative ions to the substrate.

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.

An apparatus may include an RF power assembly, arranged to output an RF signal, and a drift tube assembly, arranged to transmit an ion beam, and coupled to the RF power assembly. The drift tube assembly may include a first ground electrode; an AC drift tube assembly, disposed downstream of the first ground electrode; and a second ground electrode, disposed downstream of the AC drift tube assembly, where the AC drift tube assembly comprises at least one variable length AC drift tube.