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AssigneeICT Integrated Circuit Testing Gesellschaft für Halbleiterprüftechnik mbH
InventorsPavel Adamec, Ralf Degenhardt, Hans-Peter Feuerbaum, Harry Munack, Dieter Winkler
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The present invention provides an improved column for a charged particle beam device. The column comprises an aperture plate having multiple apertures to produce multiple beams of charged particles and a deflector to influence the beams of charged particles so that each beam appears to come from a different source. Furthermore, an objective lens is used in order to focus the charged-particle beams onto the specimen. Due to the deflector, multiple images of the source are created on the surface of the specimen whereby all the images can be used for parallel data acquisition. Accordingly, the speed of data acquisition is increased. With regard to the focusing properties of the objective lens, the beams of charged particles can basically be treated as independent particle beams which do not negatively affect each other. Accordingly, each beam basically provides the same resolution as the beam of a conventional charged particle beam device.
A column for a charged particle beam device, which is used to examine and/or modify a specimen, said column comprising:
The column according to any of preceding claims, wherein the detector is positioned before the objective lens and comprises multiple openings to let the beams of charged particles pass through.
The column according to any of preceding claims, wherein the detector is subdivided into multiple segments corresponding to the multiple beams of charged particles.
The column according to any of preceding claims, wherein the objective lens is adapted to focus the secondary particles and/or backscattered particles onto the detector.
The column according to any of preceding claims, wherein said objective lens comprises a magnetic lens and an electrostatic lens.
The column according to any of preceding claims, wherein said apertures in said aperture plate are arranged along at least one ring.
The column according to any of preceding claims, wherein the column comprises a beam selector for selecting the number of charged particle beams used to examine the specimen.
A column for a charged particle beam device, which is used to examine a specimen, said column comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.