Multi species ion source
AssigneeFEI Company
InventorsGregory A. Schwind, N. William Parker
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A high brightness ion source with a gas chamber includes multiple channels, wherein the multiple channels each have a different gas. An electron beam is passed through one of the channels to provide ions of a certain species for processing a sample. The ion species can be rapidly changed by directing the electrons into another channel with a different gas species and processing a sample with ions of a second species. Deflection plates are used to align the electron beam into the gas chamber, thereby allowing the gas species in the focused ion beam to be switched quickly.
Claims21
1-20. (canceled)
A charged particle beam system, comprising:
- an electron source for providing a beam of electrons along an optical axis within a vacuum chamber;
- multiple chambers, at least one of the multiple chambers having a gas inlet and adapted for containing gas to interact with the electrons to produce ions;
- a first deflector for selectively deflecting the electron beam into different ones of the multiple chambers or into a bypass area in which the electrons are passed through;
- one or more extractor electrodes for extracting ions from at least one of the multiple chambers;
- and
- a second deflector for aligning the extracted ions with the optical axis.
A method of providing multiple charged particle species for charged particle beam applications, comprising:
- generating a beam of electrons;
- passing the beam of electrons into a first chamber to interact with a gas in the chamber to produce charged particles of a first species;
- extracting the charged particles from the first chamber;
- directing the charged particles onto a work piece through a charged particle beam optical column;
- and
- passing the beam of electrons along a path not passing through the first chamber, to provide electrons through the charged particle beam optical column to the work piece.
A charged particle beam system, comprising:
- an electron source operable to create an electron beam;
- a first chamber having a gas inlet and adapted for containing a gas to interact with the electrons of the electron beam to produce charged particles;
- an extractor operable to extract charged particles from the first chamber;
- and
- a charged particle optical column for directing a beam of charged particles toward a work piece;
- wherein the system is configured to selectively operate in either a first mode in which the electron beam passes into the first chamber and charged particles extracted from the first chamber are directed through the charged particle beam column toward the work piece, or in a second mode in which the electron beam passes through the charged particle optical column toward the work piece without passing through the first chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.