Inspection method and charged particle beam apparatus

An inspection method for inspecting an electrical characteristic of a pattern made of a conductor or a semiconductor in a dielectric region on a sample, the inspection method comprising:

• scanning the sample with a pulsed charged particle beam under a first intermittent condition to acquire a first secondary electron image;
• scanning the sample with a pulsed charged particle beam under a second intermittent condition to acquire a second secondary electron image;
• extracting a first third region segmentation based on a high luminance side luminance profile in a difference image between the first secondary electron image and the second secondary electron image;
• and
• inspecting the electrical characteristic of the pattern based on a feature based on a luminance value of the third region segmentation in the first secondary electron image and the second secondary electron image.

An inspection method for inspecting an electrical characteristic of a pattern made of a conductor or a semiconductor in a dielectric region on a sample, the inspection method comprising:

• scanning the sample, to which light under a first light emission condition is emitted, with a charged particle beam to acquire a first secondary electron image;
• scanning the sample, to which light under a second light emission condition is emitted, with a charged particle beam to acquire a second secondary electron image;
• extracting a third region segmentation based on a high luminance side luminance profile in a difference image between the first secondary electron image and the second secondary electron image;
• and
• inspecting the electrical characteristic of the pattern based on a feature based on a luminance value of the third region segmentation in the first secondary electron image and the second secondary electron image.

A charged particle beam apparatus comprising:

• a sample stage on which a sample where a pattern made of a conductor or a semiconductor is formed in a dielectric region is placed;
• a charged particle optical system configured to emit a charged particle beam to the sample;
• and
• an information processing device configured to inspect an electrical characteristic of the pattern based on a secondary electron image acquired by scanning the sample with the charged particle beam, wherein
• the information processing device calculates a feature based on a luminance value of a third region extending from a boundary between a first region and a second region toward the first region and having a higher luminance than the second region, the first region corresponding to the dielectric region and the second region corresponding to the pattern in the secondary electron image, and inspects the electrical characteristic of the pattern based on the feature.