An object is to provide an electron beam applicator suitable for an electron gun having a photocathode and an electron beam emission method in the electron beam applicator. The object can be achieved by an electron beam applicator including: an electron gun section; a main body section; and a control unit. The electron gun section includes a light source, a photocathode that emits an electron beam in response to receiving excitation light emitted from the light source, and an anode. The main body section includes an objective lens that converges an electron beam emitted from the electron gun section. The control unit controls at least convergence power of the objective lens in accordance with a size of an electron beam emitted from the photocathode.

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.

Provided is a photocathode kit that does not require adjustment of the distance between a photocathode film and a lens focusing on the photocathode film when the photocathode and the lens are installed inside an electron gun. The photocathode kit includes: a photocathode including a substrate in which a photocathode film is formed on a first surface; a lens; and a holder that holds the substrate and the lens, and the holder has a retaining member that retains the photocathode film and the lens to be spaced apart by a predetermined distance, and a first communication path that communicates between inside of the holder and outside of the holder.

A scanning electron beam apparatus which two-dimensionally scans a sample by an electron beam, to achieve high resolution even with a photoexcited electron source. The electron beam apparatus includes a photocathode including a substrate having a refractive index of more than 1.7 and a photoemissive film, a focusing lens configured to focus an excitation light toward the photocathode, an extractor electrode disposed facing the photocathode and configured to accelerate an electron beam generated from the photoemissive film by focusing the excitation light by the focusing lens and emitting the excitation light through the substrate, and an electron optics including a deflector configured to two-dimensionally scan a sample by the electron beam accelerated by the extractor electrode. For a spherical aberration of the focusing lens, a root mean square of the spherical aberration on the photoemissive film is equal to or less than 1/14 of a wavelength of the excitation light.

There is provided an ultrafast electron diffraction apparatus including: a photoelectron gun configured to emit an electron beam; a bending portion for emitting the electron beam emitted from the photoelectron gun by changing a travel direction of the electron beam by a predetermined angle; and a sample portion including a sample to be analyzed by the electron beam emitted from the bending portion. The electron beam reaches the sample portion in a state that a pulse of the electron beam is compressed and the timing jitter between the pumping light and probe electron pulse is completely reduced as the travel direction of the electron beam is changed by the predetermined angle through the bending portion.

The present invention is to generate a spatially phase modulated electron wave. A laser radiating apparatus, a spatial light phase modulator, and a photocathode are provided. The photocathode has a semiconductor film having an NEA film formed on a surface thereof, and a thickness of the semiconductor film is smaller than a value obtained by multiplying a coherent relaxation time of electrons in the semiconductor film by a moving speed of the electrons in the semiconductor film. According to the configuration, a spatial distribution of phase and a spatial distribution of intensity of spatial phase modulated light are transferred to an electron wave, and the electron wave emitted from an NEA film is modulated into the spatial distribution of phase and the spatial distribution of intensity of the light. Since the spatial distribution of phase of the light can be modulated as intended by a spatial phase modulation technique for light, it is possible to generate an electron wave having a spatial distribution of phase modulated as intended.

A scanning electron beam apparatus which two-dimensionally scans a sample by an electron beam to achieve high resolution even with a photoexcited electron source. The electron beam apparatus includes a photocathode including a substrate having a refractive index of more than 1.7 and a photoemissive film, a focusing lens configured to focus an excitation light toward the photocathode, an extractor electrode disposed facing the photocathode and configured to accelerate an electron beam generated from the photoemissive film by focusing the excitation light by the focusing lens and emitting the excitation light through the substrate, and an electron optics including a deflector configured to two-dimensionally scan a sample by the electron beam accelerated by the extractor electrode. For a spherical aberration of the focusing lens, a root mean square of the spherical aberration on the photoemissive film is equal to or less than 1/14 of a wavelength of the excitation light.

A charged particle beam apparatus for scanning a specimen with a charged particle beam and acquiring a scan image. The charged particle beam apparatus including: an optical system that includes a pulse mechanism for illuminating the specimen with pulses of the charged particle beam, and a deflector that deflects the charged particle beam and scans the specimen with the deflected charged particle beam; and a control unit that controls the optical system. The control unit controls the optical system so as to satisfy T = n × t (n is a natural number). T represents a dwell time of the charged particle beam in each pixel of the scan image, and t represents a cycle of pulses of the charged particle beam.

An electron beam writing apparatus comprising, a cathode configured to emit an electron beam, a condition controller configured to change a condition under which the electron beam is emitted from the cathode in a plurality of ways, and a prediction unit configured to predict a life span of the cathode based on a temporal change in an amount of fluctuation of a beam characteristic of the electron beam to a change in the condition when the condition is changed.

A multiple electron beam writing apparatus includes an excitation light source to emit an excitation light, a multi-lens array to divide the excitation light into a plurality of lights, a photoemissive surface to receive the plurality of lights incident through its upper side, and emit multiple photoelectron beams from its back side, a blanking aperture array mechanism to provide, by deflecting each beam of the multiple photoelectron beams, an individual blanking control which individually switches each beam between ON and OFF, an electron optical system to include an electron lens, and to irradiate, using the electron lens, a target object with the multiple photoelectron beams having been controlled to be beam ON, and a control circuit to interconnect, for each shot of the multiple photoelectron beams, a timing of switching the excitation light between emission and non-emission with a timing of switching the each beam between ON and OFF.