Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Atsuko Fukada

Muneyuki Fukuda

Mitsugu Sato

Naomasa Suzuki

Noritsugu Takahashi

Tomoyasu Shojo

Ichiro Tachibana

Hidetoshi Nishiyama

Hiroyuki Ito

Satoshi Takada

Masashi Sakamoto

An electron beam apparatus which includes a sample stage on which a sample is placed, and an electron optical system. The electron optical system includes an electron gun that generates a primary electron beam, an immersion objective lens that converges the primary electron beam on the sample, an E&#xd7;B deflector that separates a secondary particle, which is generated from irradiation of the primary beam to the sample, from an optical axis of the primary beam, a reflecting member to which the secondary particle collides, an assist electrode which is located under the reflecting member, a plurality of incidental particle detectors that selectively detect a velocity component and an azimuth component of a ternary particle which is generated by the secondary particle colliding to the reflecting member, and a center detector that is located above the reflecting member.

Electron beam apparatus and electron beam inspection method

An electron beam apparatus which includes a sample stage on which a sample is placed, and an electron optical system. The electron optical system includes an electron gun that generates a primary electron beam, an immersion objective lens that converges the primary electron beam on the sample, an ExB deflector that separates a secondary particle, which is generated from irradiation of the primary beam to the sample, from an optical axis of the primary beam, a reflecting member to which the secondary particle collides, an assist electrode which is located under the reflecting member, a plurality of incidental particle detectors that selectively detect a velocity component and an azimuth component of a ternary particle which is generated by the secondary particle colliding to the reflecting member, and a center detector that is located above the reflecting member.

In an electric immersion lens having high resolution capability, secondary electrons generated from a specimen are accelerated to suppress the dependency of rotational action of the secondary electrons applied thereto by an objective lens upon energy levels of the secondary electrons and when selectively detecting low and high angle components of elevation and azimuth as viewed from a secondary electron generation site by means of an annular detector interposed between an electron source and the objective lens, the secondary electrons are adjusted and deflected by means of an E&#xd7;B deflector such that the center axis of secondary electrons converged finely under acceleration is made to be coincident with the center axis of a low elevation signal detection system and the secondary electrons are deviated from an aperture of a high elevation signal detection system.

Inspection method and inspection system using charged particle beam

An object of the invention is to be able to select easily and quickly inspection recipes which are appropriate to samples from any number of inspection recipes. A calculating device displays a plurality of inspection recipes on the GUI. An inspection recipe includes settings for controlling charged particle columns which irradiate charged particles on samples with a plurality of characteristics. Plural inspection recipes are arranged and displayed on a coordinate system which is specified by a plurality of axes having characteristic values (robustness variable of charge up, throughput of defect inspection, and accuracy of defect inspection) which have mutually trade-off relationships.

Charged particle apparatus, scanning electron microscope, and sample inspection method

The present invention provides a charged-particle beam inspection technology that enables to acquire a shadow contrast enhanced image, and to detect a shallow roughness with sufficient sensitively, which is caused by a micro-scale or nano-scale foreign matter in an inspection of a semiconductor device having a circuit pattern or the like. Immersion objective lens is employed as an objective lens for the high-resolution observation. A converged electron beam is obtained due to the objective lens. An assist electrode, a right detector and a left detector are provided in the objective lens. A velocity component of a secondary electron caused by the irradiation of the sample with an electron beam is discriminated. An azimuth component is further discriminated.

A technology whereby removal of magnetic hysteresis is enabled in short time in parallel with a process for stage transfer, and so forth. There is executed a magnetic hysteresis removal sequence whereby current for exciting an electromagnetic coil prior to acquisition of an image is always set to a predetermined variation value against a target value, thereby obtaining information on an image, and so forth, when a diameter of a primary electron beam, converged on the specimen, becomes smaller than dimensions displayed by one pixel of an image to be acquired.

Charged particle beam apparatus

A scanning electron microscope, by which an image of unevennesses on the surface of a sample may be obtained in a high-resolution manner and a high contrast one, is provided according to the present invention. A sample image is obtained by use of the scanning electron microscope with a configuration in which a positive voltage is applied in order to accelerate a primary electron beam, and an electric field shielding plate, a magnetic field shielding plate, or an electromagnetic field shielding plate is arranged on the upper side of an object lens.

Scanning electron microscope and apparatus for detecting defect

To establish a technique that enables sorting of the elevation and azimuth angle in the direction of emitting secondary electrons and obtaining images with emphasized contrast, in order to perform the review and analysis of shallow asperities and microscopic foreign particles in a wafer inspection during the manufacture of semiconductor devices, an electromagnetic overlapping objective lens is used to achieve high resolution, an electron beam is narrowly focused using the objective lens, an electric field for accelerating secondary electrons in the vicinity of a wafer in order to suppress the dependence on secondary electron energy of the rotation of secondary electrons generated by irradiation of the electron beam, a ring-shaped detector plate is disposed between an electron source and the objective lens, and the low angle components of the elevation angle of the secondary electrons, as viewed from the place of generation, and the high angle components are separated and also the azimuth components are separated and detected.

Growing community of inventors

Kokubunji, Japan

Atsuko Fukada