# US 7,718,981 B2 · Composite charged-particle beam system

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- Number: US 7,718,981 B2
- Document ID: US7718981B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 12/134,919
- Filed: 2008-06-06
- Published: 2008-12-25
- Granted: 2010-05-18
- Earliest claimed: 2005-12-09
- Assignees: SII NanoTechnology Inc.
- Inventors: Haruo Takahashi; Yo Yamamoto; Toshiaki Fujii
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US7718981B2

## CPC

- H01J 37/20: Means for supporting or positioning the object or the material; Means for adjusting diaphragms or lenses associated with the support
- H01J 37/3056: {for microworking, e. g. etching of gratings or trimming of electrical components}
- H01J 2237/20242: Eucentric movement
- H01J 2237/31745: for preparing specimen to be viewed in microscopes or analyzed in microanalysers
- H01J 2237/31749: Focused ion beam
- H01J: ELECTRIC DISCHARGE TUBES OR DISCHARGE LAMPS (spark-gaps H01T; electric arc lamps H05B31/00; particle accelerators H05H)

## Abstract

There is provided a method of arranging, as a composite charged-particle beam system, a gas ion beam apparatus, an FIB and an SEM in order to efficiently prepare a TEM sample. The composite charged-particle beam system includes an FIB lens-barrel 1, an SEM lens-barrel 2, a gas ion beam lens-barrel 3, and a rotary sample stage 9 having an eucentric tilt mechanism and a rotating shaft 10 orthogonal to an eucentric tilt axis 8. In the composite charged-particle beam system, an arrangement is made such that a focused ion beam 4, an electron beam 5 and a gas ion beam 6 intersect at a single point, an axis of the FIB lens-barrel 1 and an axis of the SEM lens barrel 2 are orthogonal to the eucentric tilt axis 8, respectively, and the axis of the FIB lens-barrel 1, an axis of the gas ion beam lens-barrel 3 and the eucentric tilt axis 8 are in one plane.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A. composite charged-particle beam system comprising at least a focused ion beam apparatus, a scanning electron microscope, a gas ion beam apparatus and a sample stage, wherein
said sample stage includes an eucentric tilt mechanism for tilting at least a sample at an identical height, and a sample stage rotating shaft orthogonal to an eucentric tilt axis serving as an axis of said eucentric tilt mechanism, and
said focused ion beam apparatus, said scanning electron microscope and said gas ion beam apparatus are arranged and adjusted such that a focused ion beam emitted from said focused ion beam apparatus, an electron beam emitted from said scanning electron microscope and a gas ion beam emitted from said gas ion beam apparatus intersect at an area defined as a single point, and are arranged such that an axis of a lens-barrel of said focused ion beam apparatus and an axis of a lens-barrel of said electron microscope are substantially orthogonal to said eucentric tilt axis, respectively, and the axis of the lens-barrel of said focused ion beam, an axis of a lens-barrel of said gas ion beam and said eucentric tilt axis are in one plane.