Charged Particle Beam Aperture Selection and Preadjustment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Versatile charged particle beam devices used for various samples face challenges in automatic adjustment, leading to unsuccessful adjustments, requiring skilled manual intervention, which can be time-consuming and inconsistent, especially for less-experienced operators, due to complexities in setting emission conditions and movable objective apertures.
Innovation Solution
A charged particle beam device with a storage unit for multiple emission conditions, a display unit for suitability checks, and an operation controller that preadjusts the beam to match selected conditions, ensuring accurate alignment and registration, even for less-experienced operators, by determining and displaying unsuitable objective apertures and automatically adjusting the beam.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If automatic adjustment is used for versatile charged particle beam devices, then operation ease is improved, but adjustment reliability deteriorates due to complicated adjustment conditions and sample variability
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by detecting the objective aperture position and beam position before adjustment, storing these as baseline data. This preliminary detection enables the automatic adjustment algorithm to compensate for variations in aperture positions and beam positions, thereby maintaining adjustment reliability while preserving ease of operation through automation.
2Reliability
If manual adjustment is used by less-experienced operators, then adjustment reliability may improve for specific cases, but operation ease deteriorates due to required skills and time consumption
Solution Approach 1:
The charged particle beam device performs self-service through automatic adjustment functions that detect and correct optical axis deviations without operator intervention. The system automatically detects objective aperture position, beam position, and optical axis deviation, then executes correction procedures, eliminating the need for less-experienced operators to acquire manual adjustment skills while maintaining consistent adjustment quality.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the objective aperture position is frequently changed by operators, then adaptability to different emission conditions is improved, but device complexity increases making preadjustment difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback by detecting the actual objective aperture position and beam position, comparing them with expected values, and using this information to calculate and correct optical axis deviations. This feedback mechanism allows the system to adapt to different aperture positions and emission conditions automatically, managing device complexity through intelligent control rather than requiring manual preadjustment for each configuration.
4Measurement precision
If preadjustment is performed for each emission condition, then adjustment precision is improved, but loss of time increases due to repeated adjustment work
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary detection of objective aperture position and beam position, storing this baseline data for later use. This preliminary action eliminates the need for repeated time-consuming adjustment procedures, as the stored position information is reused to quickly calculate and apply corrections for different emission conditions, thereby maintaining high adjustment precision while reducing adjustment time.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention relates to enabling a versatile charged particle beam device, which is used for a wide range of kinds of samples to be observed and has parameters of emission conditions of a primary charged particle beam that is difficult to be registered in advance, to be operated easily and accurately even by a less-experienced operator and to obtain high-resolution images. A charged particle beam device according to the present invention includes, for example: a charged particle source, a focusing lens for a primary charged particle beam emitted from the charged particle source, an objective lens for focusing the primary charged particle beam, a movable objective aperture having multiple objective apertures disposed on a side of the charged particle source with respect to the objective lens, a detector of a secondary signal from the sample resulting from emission of the primary charged particle beam, a display unit configured to process and display a detected secondary signal, and a storage unit configured to store multiple emission conditions of the primary particle beam. The operation controller makes one emission condition be selected, determines whether or not the objective aperture is suitable for the selected emission condition, displays that the objective aperture is unsuitable when the objective aperture is unsuitable, and preadjusts the primary charged particle beam according to the selected emission condition and stores the preadjustment result as parameters for the emission conditions when the objective aperture is suitable.