A substrate processing system includes a substrate processing apparatus and a switching timing creation support device, wherein the switching timing creation support device includes: an acquisition part configured to acquire, for each of a plurality of properties of particles contained in a gas in the substrate processing apparatus during a processing for a substrate, a measured value of an amount of the particles from a measuring device; a selection part configured to select properties of a predetermined number of the particles in descending order of temporal variations in the amount of the particles; a determination part configured to determine an operation expression and a switching condition for determining a switching timing based on a temporal change in the amount of the particles for each of the selected properties of the particles; and an output part configured to output the operation expression and the switching condition to the substrate processing apparatus.

A method to compensate for drift while controlling a charged particle beam (CPB) system having at least one charged particle beam controllable in position. Sources of drift include mechanical variations in the stage supporting the sample, beam deflection shifts, and environmental impacts, such as temperature. The method includes positioning a sample supported by a stage in the CPB system, monitoring a reference fiducial on a surface of the sample from a start time to an end time, determining a drift compensation to compensate for a drift that causes an unintended change in the position of a first charged particle beam relative to the sample by a known amount over a period of time based on a change in the position of the reference fiducial between the start time and the end time, and adjusting positions of the first charged particle beam by applying the determined drift compensation during an operation of the CPB system.

The invention relates to a method for processing an object using a material processing device that has a particle beam apparatus. The method comprises the following steps: determining a region of interest of the object on or in a first material region of the object, ablating material from a second material region adjoining the first material region by means of an ablation device, recognizing a geometric shape of the first material region, the geometric shape having a center, ablating material from a second portion of the first material region adjoining a first portion by means of a particle beam, the first portion having a first subregion and a second subregion, the region of interest being arranged in the first subregion, recognizing a further geometric shape of the first material region, the further geometric shape having a further center at a second position, relative positioning of the object such that the first position corresponds to the second position, and ablating material from the second subregion by means of the particle beam.

The present disclosure relates to an ion beam etching (IBE) system including a process chamber. The process chamber includes a plasma chamber configured to provide plasma. In addition, the process chamber includes an accelerator grid having multiple accelerator grid elements including a first accelerator grid element and a second accelerator grid element. A first wire is coupled to the first accelerator grid element and configured to supply a first voltage to the first accelerator grid element. A second wire is coupled to the second accelerator grid element and configured to supply a second voltage to the second accelerator grid element, where the second voltage is different from the first voltage. A first ion beam through a first hole is controlled by the first accelerator grid element, and a second ion beam through a second hole is controlled by the second accelerator grid element.

A method of fabricating non-uniform gratings includes implanting different densities of ions into corresponding areas of a substrate, patterning, e.g., by lithography, a resist layer on the substrate, etching the substrate with the patterned resist layer, and then removing the resist layer from the substrate, leaving the substrate with at least one grating having non-uniform characteristics associated with the different densities of ions implanted in the areas. The method can further include using the substrate having the grating as a mold to fabricate a corresponding grating having corresponding non-uniform characteristics, e.g., by nanoimprint lithography.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, a method of manufacturing a semiconductor structure includes providing a substrate including a first atom and a second atom; forming a compound over the substrate by bonding the first atom with a ionized etchant; and removing the compound from the substrate by bombarding the compounds with a charged particle having a bombarding energy smaller than a bonding energy between the first atom and the second atom, wherein the charged particle and the ionized etchant include different ions.

Described herein are a system and method of preparing integrated circuits (ICs) so that the ICs remain electrically active and can have their active circuitry probed for diagnostic and characterization purposes using charged particle beams. The system employs an infrared camera capable of looking through the silicon substrate of the ICs to image electrical circuits therein, a focused ion beam system that can both image the IC and selectively remove substrate material from the IC, a scanning electron microscope that can both image structures on the IC and measure voltage contrast signals from active circuits on the IC, and a means of extracting heat generated by the active IC. The method uses the system to identify the region of the IC to be probed, and to selectively remove all substrate material over the region to be probed using ion bombardment, and further identifies endpoint detection means of milling to the required depth so as to observe electrical states and waveforms on the active IC.

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 less than or equal to 500 keV.

This cross-section observation device bombards an object with a charged particle beam to repeatedly expose cross-sections of the object, bombards at least some of the cross-sections from among the plurality of the exposed cross-sections with a charged particle beam to acquire cross-sectional image information describing each of the at least some of the cross-sections, generates for each of these cross-sections a cross-sectional image described by the cross-sectional image information acquired, and generates a three-dimensional image in which the generated cross-sectional images are stacked together. This cross-section observation device displays a first three-dimensional image along with a second three-dimensional image, the first three-dimensional image being a three-dimensional image from the stacking of first cross-sectional images, which are cross-sectional images of the cross-sections described by the corresponding cross-sectional image information acquired on the basis of a first condition, and the second three-dimensional image being a three-dimensional image from the stacking of second cross-sectional images, which are cross-sectional images of the cross-sections described by the corresponding cross-sectional image information acquired on the basis of a second condition.

A method includes forming a resist pattern, the resist pattern having trenches oriented lengthwise along a first direction and separated by resist walls along both the first direction and a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The method further includes loading the resist pattern into an ion implanter so that a top surface of the resist pattern faces an ion travel direction, and tilting the resist pattern so that the ion travel direction forms a tilt angle with respect to an axis perpendicular to the top surface of the resist pattern. The method further includes rotating the resist pattern around the axis to a first position; implanting ions into the resist walls with the resist pattern at the first position; rotating the resist pattern around the axis by 180 degrees to a second position; and implanting ions into the resist walls with the resist pattern at the second position.