A charged particle assessment tool including: an objective lens configured to project a plurality of charged particle beams onto a sample, the objective lens having a sample-facing surface defining a plurality of beam apertures through which respective ones of the charged particle beams are emitted toward the sample; and a plurality of capture electrodes, each capture electrode adjacent a respective one of the beam apertures, configured to capture charged particles emitted from the sample.

The object of the present invention provides a scanning transmission electron microscope with the ability to formed at least one diffraction pattern. The scanning electron microscope comprises an electron source, which is configured to provide primary electron beam, a condenser lens system, an objective electromagnetic system, a projection lens system and a detection system, in addition, the objective electromagnetic lens consists of an upper pole piece and a lower pole piece, wherein each pole piece comprises a pole piece face, which is a flat surface oriented towards a sample plane. A salient feature of the present invention is to form at least one diffraction pattern located in the distance from the lower pole piece face outside the pole piece gap, wherein the pole piece gap is the space between the upper pole piece face and the lower pole piece face.

An ion generator includes an ion source control unit that controls a gas supply unit and a plasma excitation source in accordance with a current ion source condition and a new ion source condition to be employed subsequent to the current ion source condition, a retention time obtaining unit that obtains retention time for the current ion source condition, and a pre-treatment condition setting unit that sets a pre-treatment condition defining a pre-treatment for forming a surface layer region suitable for the new ion source condition on a plasma chamber inner wall based on the current ion source condition, the retention time, and the new ion source condition. The ion source control unit is configured to control the gas supply unit and the plasma excitation source in accordance with the pre-treatment condition when the current ion source condition is changed to the new ion source condition.

A corrector structure and a method for correcting aberration of an annular focused charged-particle beam, the corrector structure comprising a plurality of lenses configured for reducing second-order geometric aberration in the charged-particle beam.

Provided is a measurement method for measuring, in an electron microscope including a segmented detector having a detection plane segmented into a plurality of detection regions, a direction of each of the plurality of detection regions in a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) image, the measurement method including: shifting an electron beam EB incident on a sample S under a state where the detection plane is conjugate to a plane shifted from a diffraction plane to shift the electron beam EB on the detection plane, and measuring a shift direction of the electron beam EB on the detection plane with the segmented detector; and obtaining the direction of each of the plurality of detection regions in the STEM image from the shift direction.

An electron emission tube includes a housing in which an internal space is provided and which keeps the internal space in vacuum, an electron source that is arranged on a first end side in one direction of the housing and that generates an electron, a gate valve that is arranged on a second end side in the one direction of the housing and that can switch the second end side between an open state and a blocked state, and a partition part that is placed between the electron source and the gate valve and that divides the internal space into a first region including the electron source and a second region including the gate valve. The partition part includes an electron-permeable membrane that transmits an electron.

In one embodiment, a charged particle beam writing apparatus includes a blanking circuit applying a blanking voltage to a blanking deflector, a stage on which a substrate is placed, a mark on the stage, a detector detecting an irradiation position of the charged particle beam based on irradiation of the mark with the charged particle beam, and a diagnostic electric circuitry that causes the charged particle beam to enter a predetermined defocused state relative to the mark, obtains a difference between a first irradiation position when the mark is scanned under first irradiation conditions and a second irradiation position when the mark is scanned under second irradiation conditions in which at least either of irradiation time and settling time in the first irradiation conditions is varied, and determines occurrence of a failure of the blanking circuit when the difference is a predetermined value or more.

A system for generating an electron beam array, comprising a light source, a first substrate having a plurality of plasmonic lenses mounted thereon, the plasmonic lenses configured to received light from the light source and produce an electron emission, and a plurality of electrostatic microlenses configured to focus the electron emissions into a beam for focusing on a wafer substrate. A light source modulator and digital micro mirror may be included which captures light from the light source and projects light beamlets on the plasmonic lenses.

In one embodiment, a data processing method is provided for generating writing data from design data and registering the writing data in a charged particle beam writing apparatus. The method includes generating the writing data by performing a plurality of conversion processes on a plurality of pieces of first frame data obtained through division of the design data corresponding to one chip, and performing a plurality of preprocessing processes on a plurality of pieces of second frame data obtained through division of the writing data of the chip, and registering the writing data of the chip in the charged particle beam writing apparatus. The plurality of conversion processes are performed in frame-basis pipeline processing, and the plurality of preprocessing processes are performed in frame-basis pipeline processing. The writing data is registered in the charged particle beam writing apparatus on a frame basis.

A system and method of a tilt-column electron beam imaging system is disclosed. The system may include an imaging sub-system. The imaging sub-system may include a plurality of electron beam sources configured to generate a plurality of beamlets. The imaging sub-system may further include a plurality of tilt-illumination columns, where a respective tilt-illumination column is configured to receive a respective beamlet from a respective electron beam source. For the system and method, a first tilt axis of a first tilt-illumination column may be orientated along a first angle and at least one additional tilt axis of at least one additional tilt-illumination column may be orientated along at least one additional angle different from the first angle, where each of the plurality of beamlets pass through a first common crossover volume.