Abstract:
An ion beam is rapidly switched off during ion implantation on detecting a beam instability. The ion beam is generated or provided by a non-arc discharge based ion source, such as an electron gun ion source or an RF ion source. The ion beam is scanned across a workpiece from a starting location toward an ending location. During the scanning, one or more beam characteristics are monitored, such as beam current, beam flux, shape, and the like. An instability is detected when one or more of the beam characteristics deviate from acceptable values or levels. The ion beam is rapidly turned off on the detected instability.
Abstract:
When conditions for an electron gun mainly represented by extraction voltage V1 and accelerating voltage V0 are changed, a charged particle beam is once focused on a fixed position by means of a condenser lens and a virtual cathode position is calculated from a lens excitation of the condenser lens at that time and the mechanical positional relation of the electron gun to set an optical condition. For more accurate setting of the optical condition, a deflecting electrode device is provided at a crossover position of the condenser lens and a voltage is applied to the deflecting electrode device at a constant period so as to control the lens excitation of the condenser lens such that the amount of movement of an image is minimized on an image display unit such as CRT.
Abstract:
A multi-element electrostatic chicane energy filter (300) , with the addition of electrostatic quadrupole and hexapole excitations to the dipole elements (302, 304, 306, 308). A charged particle energy filter according to the present invention with a combination of dipole, quadrupole, and hexapole elements capable of producing a line focus at an aperture (310) reduces space-charge effects and aperture damage. A preferred embodiment allows the filter to act as a conjugate blanking system. The energy filter is capable of narrowing the energy spread to result in a smaller beam.
Abstract:
An improved method and apparatus for shutting down and restoring an ion beam in an ion beam system. Preferred embodiments provide a system for improved power control of a focused ion beam source, which utilizes an automatic detection of when a charged particle beam system is idle (the beam itself is not in use) and then automatically reducing the beam current to a degree where little or no ion milling occurs at any aperture plane in the ion column. Preferred embodiments include a controller operable to modify voltage to an extractor electrode and/or to reduce voltage to a source electrode when idle state of an ion source of the charged particle beam system is detected.
Abstract:
An apparatus (10) for use with an electron beam (30) for imaging a sample (26). The apparatus has a down-conversion detector (14) configured to detect an electron microscopy signal (32) generated by the electron beam incident on the sample, a direct bombardment detector (16) adjacent to the down-conversion detector and configured to detect the electron microscopy signal, and a mechanism (18) selectively exposing the down-conversion detector and the direct bombardment detector to the electron microscopy signal. A method using the apparatus is also provided.
Abstract:
An electron beam exposure method wherein an object to be exposed and an electron beam irradiation spot are moved relative to each other at a continuous rate is characterized in that the object is exposed at a plurality of electron beam irradiation intensities by changing the transmittance of an electron optical system which forms the electron beam irradiation spot on the object.
Abstract:
A scanned image to be observed or to be recorded is formed by N two-dimensional scanning cycles of an irradiating charged particle or light beam. In order to adjust the averaged irradiation intensity of the sample, the irradiating beam can be blanked during some of the N cycles.
Abstract:
Charged particle source (14) delivers beam (20) which is collimated onto first aperture plate having first aperture (28). The beam passing therethrough is deflected by deflection plates (32, 34, 38 and 40) with respect to second aperture (46) in second aperture plate (44). The image (50) of the second aperture (46) is focused on the target plane (16) and the virtual image of the footprint (58) of the deflected beam is focused on the target plane (16). When these images overlap, a shaped beam (56) passes through. Scanning of the beam across the target plane by deflection plates (52 and 54) permits exposure of sharp-edged features (62) by positioning the image (60a) inside the margin (64) and then scanning the image (50b) thereacross to expose the sharp edge and thereupon picking up the image (60) so that they both scan across the feature to be exposed.