Charged particle beam apparatus

A charged particle beam apparatus comprising:

• an electron beam irradiation unit configured to irradiate a sample with electron beams along a first irradiation axis;
• a rotation stage, which is configured to hold the sample, and which has a rotation axis in a direction perpendicular to the first irradiation axis;
• an ion beam irradiation unit configured to irradiate the sample with ion beams along a second irradiation axis that is substantially parallel to the rotation axis so as to process the sample into a needle shape;
• a detection unit configured to detect at least one of charged particles and X rays generated via the needle-shaped sample by the irradiation with the ion beams or the electron beams;
• a gaseous ion beam irradiation unit configured to irradiate the needle-shaped sample with gaseous ion beams;
• and
• a control unit configured to control the charged particle beam apparatus to perform:
• a rotation operation in which the rotation stage is rotated by a predetermined angle repeatedly so as to rotate the sample stage by 360°;
• and
• an irradiation operation in which the gaseous ion beam irradiation unit irradiates an entire surface of the needle-shaped sample in a circumferential direction with the gaseous ion beams.