A charged particle beam apparatus acquires a scanned image by scanning a sample with a charged particle beam and detecting charged particles emitted from the sample. The charged particle beam apparatus includes: a plurality of detection units that detect charged particles emitted from the sample; and an image processing unit that generates the scanned image based on a plurality of detection signals outputted from the plurality of the detection units. The image processing unit performs a process of calculating a tilt direction of a sample surface and a tilt angle of the sample surface based on the plurality of the detection signals for an irradiation position of the charged particle beam; and a process of determining a color of a pixel of the scanned image according to the calculated tilt direction and the calculated tilt angle.

A sample observation device of the invention includes: a charged particle optical column for irradiating a sample with charged particle beams at a first acceleration voltage, the sample having a target part to be observed which is a concave part; an image acquisition part for acquiring an image including the target part to be observed on the basis of signals obtained by irradiation with the charged particle beams; a memory part for memorizing in advance, at each of a plurality of acceleration voltages, information indicating a relationship between a brightness ratio of a concave part to a periphery part of the concave part in a standard sample and a value indicating a structure of the concave part in the standard sample; and an operation part for obtaining a brightness ratio of the concave part to a periphery part of the concave part in the image. The operation part judges appropriateness/inappropriateness of the first acceleration voltage with the use of the information indicating the relationship and the brightness ratio in the image.

An electron microscope includes: a display control unit which sequentially acquires electron microscope images of a sample and causes a display unit to display the electron microscope images as a live image; an analysis area setting unit which sets an analysis area on the sample based on a designated position on the live image designated by pointing means; and an analysis control unit which performs control for executing elemental analysis of the set analysis area. The analysis area setting unit sets, as the analysis area, an area on the sample which corresponds to a continuous area including the designated position and having brightness comparable to brightness of the designated position.

A 3D profiling system of a semiconductor chip is provided and includes a storage unit that receives scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of a plurality of semiconductor devices having respective data with respect to a plurality of different components and gray levels of each SEM image. An extraction unit that performs principal component analysis (PCA) on the gray level of the SEM image and separates principal components from among the plurality of different components is also part of the system. Additionally, a calculation unit receives provision of actually measured values of the plurality of semiconductor devices, and applies a multiple linear regression to the principal components based on the measured values to complete a 3D profile of the semiconductor chip.

Method and apparatus for analysis and display of fine grained mineral samples. A portion of the sample is illuminated with a charged particle beam. Emitted radiation is detected, and a sample emission spectrum is generated and fit with a plurality of standard emission spectra of minerals in a candidate mineral composition. A mineral composition whose emission spectrum best fits the sample emission spectrum is selected from a plurality of candidate mineral compositions. An assigned color is received for each mineral in the selected mineral composition, and the assigned colors are blended according to the proportion of each mineral in the selected mineral composition. An image pixel corresponding to the portion of the sample is rendered for display.

A 3D profiling system of a semiconductor chip is provided and includes a storage unit that receives scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of a plurality of semiconductor devices having respective data with respect to a plurality of different components and gray levels of each SEM image. An extraction unit that performs principal component analysis (PCA) on the gray level of the SEM image and separates principal components from among the plurality of different components is also part of the system. Additionally, a calculation unit receives provision of actually measured values of the plurality of semiconductor devices, and applies a multiple linear regression to the principal components based on the measured values to complete a 3D profile of the semiconductor chip.

Multi-color CL images of nanoparticle samples may be generated, by irradiating with a scanning electron beam a nanoparticle sample that containing a plurality of spectrally distinct optical emitters configured to generate CL light at respective different color channels, then detecting the CL light from the nanoparticles to generate multi-color NP-CL images of the nanoparticle sample. In some embodiments, SE (secondary electron) images of the sample may be acquire, substantially simultaneously with the acquisition of the CL images, so as to generate correlative NP-CL and SE images of the nanoparticle sample. In some embodiments, the nanoparticles may be surface-functionalized so that the nanoparticles selectively bind only to particular structures of interest.

The invention relates to a method for operating a particle beam apparatus for imaging, processing and/or analysing an object. For example, the particle beam apparatus is embodied as an electron beam apparatus and/or an ion beam apparatus. The invention furthermore relates to a computer program product and to a system comprising a particle beam apparatus for carrying out the method. The method comprises providing first structure data and second structure data; determining a target arrangement for a first device; providing at least one movement path; modelling the movement path of the first device within the particle beam apparatus; carrying out a check to determine whether the modelling of the movement path has the result that at least one first surface arrangement of the first device and at least one second surface arrangement of the at least one second device, when carrying out a movement process, (i) have at least one common point or (ii) are at a shortest distance but do not have a common point, wherein the shortest distance is smaller than a predefinable minimum distance; and, depending on the result of the check, displaying a message, discarding a movement process, changing a speed of the movement process, aborting the movement process, switching the movement process to a further movement process and/or carrying out the movement process of the first device using a movement device for moving the first device.