Abstract:
A compound electron lens having at least two exciting coils is disclosed. A gap for bypassing the flux from the coils is disposed in the inner magnetic path located between the coils. The polarities of the exciting currents to the coils are made identical or are reversed whereby the multiplying factor of the lens is varied over a wide range with a minimum of distortion.
Abstract:
A multi-source illumination apparatus for illuminating a sample with charged particles, wherein beams, from a plurality of sources, are arranged such that a beam from at least one source intersects, at a plane of a condenser lens, with at least part of one other beam from a different one of the plurality of sources. The condenser lens is configured to separately collimate the received beams from each source. A manipulator array arrangement is configured to manipulate the collimated beams to generate one or more beams, in a single column, that include charged particles from the plurality of sources. The manipulator array arrangement includes a multi-beam generator configured to receive the plurality of substantially parallel substantially collimated beams generated by the deflector array, and generate a multibeam in dependence on the received plurality of substantially parallel substantially collimated beams, wherein the multi-beam includes a plurality of substantially collimated sub-beams.