Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Hideo Todokoro

Mitsugu Sato

Makoto Ezumi

Yoichi Ose

Tadashi Otaka

Hiroyuki Shinada

Satoru Fukuhara

Atsushi Takane

Tohru Ishitani

Yasutsugu Usami

Katsuhiro Kuroda

Mikio Ichihashi

Fumio Mizuno

Yutaka Kaneko

Atsuko Takafuji

Hiroshi Toyama

Katsuya Sugiyama

Yuko Iwabuchi

Hisashi Takano

Tokuo Kure

Tsuyoshi Ohnishi

Ken Ninomiya

Toshio Kobayashi

Haruo Yoda

Hideo Tanabe

Naomasa Suzuki

Naoki Koyama

Kazuo Shiiki

Yasuhiro Mitsui

Isamu Yuito

Takashi Iizumi

Eijin Moriwaki

Chiaki Ishikawa

Satoru Yamaguchi

Shoji Yoshida

Mitsuji Ikeda

Hisaya Murakoshi

Satoru Yamada

Takahiro Sato

Hiroshi Makino

Akira Ikegami

Noriaki Arai

Osamu Yamada

Ritsuo Fukaya

Kazunari Asao

Takashi Doi

Takeshi Kawasaki

Hiroyuki Itoh

Shunroku Taya

Hiroshi Kakibayashi

Takaho Yoshida

Hiroyasu Shichi

Yasunari Sohda

Souichi Katagiri

Norio Saitou

Keigo Kasuya

Yoshio Sakitani

Tsutomu Komoda

Yoshinori Nakayama

Takashi Ohshima

Kazutaka Tsuji

Osamu Komuro

Shigeto Isakozawa

Kensuke Sekihara

Hifumi Tamura

Tatsuo Makishima

Kenji Tanimoto

Yasuhiko Ozawa

Masanari Koguchi

Ruriko Tsuneta

Takashi Nishida

Kuniyasu Nakamura

Sho Takami

Muneyuki Fukuda

Yasunari Umemoto

Yoshimi Kawanami

Hajime Kawano

Takashi Yamazaki

Takashi Inoue

Hitoshi Yokono

Aritoshi Sugimoto

Yoshihiko Okamoto

Shinichi Kato

Kiyomi Yoshinari

Hiroshi Suzuki

Shinji Okazaki

Noboru Masuda

Shigeyuki Hosoki

Tatsuya Maeda

Masahide Okumura

Noritsugu Takahashi

Masaki Hasegawa

Taku Ninomiya

Zhaohui Cheng

Katsuhiro Sasada

Hideo Arima

Hidetaka Shigi

Hirotoshi Tanaka

Shigehiko Yamamoto

Yasuo Kato

An object of the invention is to stably supply an electron beam from an electron gun, that is, to prevent variation in intensity of the electron beam. The invention provides a charged particle beam device that includes an electron gun having an electron source, an extraction electrode to which a voltage used for extracting electrons from the electron source is applied, and an acceleration electrode to which a voltage used for accelerating the electrons extracted from the electron source is applied, a first heating unit that heats the extraction electrode, and a second heating unit that heats the acceleration electrode.

Charged particle beam device

The present invention has the object of providing charged particle beam irradiation method ideal for reducing the focus offset, magnification fluctuation and measurement length error in charged particle beam devices. To achieve these objects, a method is disclosed in the invention for measuring the electrical potential distribution on the sample with a static electrometer while loaded by a loader mechanism. Another method is disclosed for measuring the local electrical charge at specified points on the sample, and isolating and measuring the wide area electrostatic charge quantity from those local electrostatic charges. Yet another method is disclosed for correcting the measurement length value or magnification based on fluctuations found by measuring the amount of electrostatic charge at the specified points under at least two charged particle optical conditions, and then using a charged particle beam to measure fluctuations in measurement dimensions occurring due to fluctuations in the electrostatic charge at the specified locations.

Sample electrification measurement method and charged particle beam apparatus

A charged particle beam apparatus includes a field emission electron source, electrodes for applying an electric field to the field emission electron source, and a vacuum exhaust unit for keeping the pressure around the field emission electron source at 1&#xd7;10Pa or less. The apparatus uses electron beams emitted to have an electron-beam-center radiation angle of 1&#xd7;10sr or less, and uses the electric current thereof, the second order differentiation of which is negative or zero with respect to time, and which reduces at a rate of 10% or less per hour. A heating unit is provided for the field emission electron source, and a detection unit is provided for the electric current of the electron beam. The field emission electron source is repeatedly heated to keep the electric current of the electron beam to be emitted, at a predetermined value or higher.

Charged particle beam apparatus, and method of controlling the same

The inspection apparatus disclosed generates an electron beam, an acceleration electrode accelerates the electron beam, a convergence lens converges the electron beam, an electron beam deflector scans the beam over a sample, an objective lens converges the electron beam on the sample, a detector located between the sample and the objective lens detects charged particles emitted from the sample, a power supply applies a retarding voltage to the sample for decelerating the electron beam to the sample, an electrode is disposed between the objective lens and the sample, and a voltage is generated between the sample and the electrode by said electrode, the voltage being determined depending on the sample. The apparatus solves problems encountered in conventional inspection systems.

Method and an apparatus of an inspection system using an electron beam

Provided is a charged particle beam apparatus, which can emit a stable electron beam, having high brightness and a narrow energy width. The charged particle beam apparatus comprises a field emission electron source, electrodes for applying an electric field to the field emission electron source, and a vacuum exhaust unit for keeping the pressure around the field emission electron source at 1 10&#x2212;8 Pa or less. The apparatus is so constituted as to use such one of the electron beams emitted as has an electron-beam-center radiation angle of 1&#xd7;10sr or less, and to use the electric current thereof, the second order differentiation of which is negative or zero with respect to the time, and which reduces at a rate of 10% or less per hour. The charged particle beam apparatus further comprises a heating unit for the field emission electron source, and a detection unit for the electric current of the electron beam. The field emission electron source is repeatedly heated to keep the electric current of the electron beam to be emitted, at a predetermined value or higher.

Problems encountered in the conventional inspection method and the conventional apparatus adopting the method are solved by the present invention using an electron beam by providing a novel inspection method and an inspection apparatus adopting the novel method which are capable of increasing the speed to scan a specimen such as a semiconductor wafer. The inspection novel method provided by the present invention comprises the steps of: generating an electron beam; converging the generated electron beam on a specimen by using an objective lens; scanning the specimen by using the converged electron beam; continuously moving the specimen during scanning; detecting charged particles emanating from the specimen at a location between the specimen and the objective lens and converting the detected charged particles into an electrical signal; storing picture information conveyed by the electrical signal; comparing a picture with another by using the stored picture information; and detecting a defect of the specimen.

Method and apparatus of an inspection system using an electron beam

An electric field for decelerating an electron beam is formed on a surface of a sample semiconductor to be inspected, an electron beam having a specific area (a sheet electron beam) and containing a component having such an energy as not to reach the surface of the sample semiconductor is reflected in the very vicinity of the surface of the sample semiconductor by action of the electric field for deceleration and then forms an image through an imaging lens. Thus images of plural fields on the surface of the sample semiconductor are obtained and are stored in image memory units. By comparing the stored images of the plural fields with one another, the presence and position of a defect in the fields are determined.

Apparatus and method for wafer pattern inspection

To make it possible to observe the bottom of a contact hole and internal wires, in observation of the contact hole, by scanning it at a predetermined acceleration voltage, the positive chargeis formed on the surface of the insulator, and the secondary electronsare attracted in the hole by this electric field, and the hole is continuously scanned at an acceleration voltage different from the acceleration voltage, and the sample is observed. When the wires embedded in the insulator are to be observed, by observing the insulator at a predetermined acceleration voltage, an electron beam is allowed to enter the sample, and the sample is continuously scanned at an acceleration voltage different from the acceleration voltage, and hence the existence of wires is reflected as a change in the charge of the surface, and it is observed. In either case, the acceleration voltage before observation is different from the one during observation, and the sample surface is temporarily radiated at an acceleration voltage positively generating a positive or negative charge, and thereafter, the acceleration voltage is returned to a one suited to observation, and the sample is observed.

Scanning electron microscope

The invention provides a charged particle beam apparatus capable of preventing image errors in a display image and capturing a clear display image. A display image displayed on a display unit has a rectangular shape having sides that are substantially parallel to coordinate axes of a rectangular coordinate system determined by wafer alignment. A charged particle beam is radiated onto an area including a display image in a direction that is not parallel to the coordinate axes of the reference rectangular coordinate system to scan the area. Then, among image information obtained by scanning, only information of a position within the display image is displayed on the image display unit. In this way, a clear display image without brightness variation is obtained.

Charged particle beam apparatus for forming a specimen image

An invention providing a scanning electron microscope composed of a monochromator capable of high resolution, monochromatizing the energy and reducing chromatic aberrations without significantly lowering the electrical current strength of the primary electron beam. A scanning electron microscope is installed with a pair of sectorial magnetic and electrical fields having opposite deflection directions to focus the electron beam and then limit the energy width by means of slits, and another pair of sectorial magnetic and electrical fields of the same shape is installed at a position forming a symmetrical mirror versus the surface containing the slits. This structure acts to cancel out energy dispersion at the object point and symmetrical mirror positions, and by spatially contracting the point-converged spot beam with a converging lens system, improves the image resolution of the scanning electron microscope.

Monochromator and scanning electron microscope using the same

An electron beam apparatus with an aberration corrector using multipole lenses is provided. The electron beam apparatus has a scan mode for enabling the operation of the aberration corrector and a scan mode for disabling the operation of the aberration corrector and the operation of each of the aberration corrector, a condenser lens, and the like is controlled such that the object point of an objective lens does not change in either of the scan modes. If a comparison is made between the secondary electron images of a specimen in the two modes, the image scaling factor and the focus remain unchanged and evaluation and adjustment can be performed by distinctly recognizing only the effect of the aberration corrector. This reduces the time required to adjust an optical axis which has been long due to an axial alignment defect inherent in the aberration corrector and an axial alignment defect in a part other than the aberration corrector which are indistinguishably intermingled with each other.

Electron beam apparatus with aberration corrector

Image evaluation method capable of objectively evaluating the image resolution of a microscope image. An image resolution method is characterized in that resolution in partial regions of an image is obtained over an entire area of the image or a portion of the image, averaging is performed over the entire area of the image or the portion of the image, and the averaged value is established as the resolution evaluation value of the entire area of the image or the portion of the image. This method eliminates the subjective impressions of the evaluator from evaluation of microscope image resolution, so image resolution evaluation values of high accuracy and good repeatability can be obtained.

Image evaluation method and microscope

An object of the present invention is to provide a sample image forming method and a charged particle beam apparatus which are suitable for realizing suppressing of the view area displacement with high accuracy while the influence of charging due to irradiation of the charged particle beam is being suppressed. In order to attain the above object, the present invention provide a method of forming a sample image by scanning a charged particle beam on a sample and forming an image based on secondary signals emitted from the sample, the method comprising the steps of forming a plurality of composite images by superposing a plurality of images obtained by a plurality of scanning times; and forming a further composite image by correcting positional displacements among the plurality of composite images and superposing the plurality of composite images, and a charged particle beam apparatus for realizing the above method.

Method of forming a sample image and charged particle beam apparatus

The present invention has the object of providing a charged particle beam irradiation method ideal for reducing the focus offset, magnification fluctuation and measurement length error in charged particle beam devices. To achieve these objects, a method is disclosed in the invention for measuring the electrical potential distribution on the sample with a static electrometer while loaded by a loader mechanism. Another method is disclosed for measuring the local electrical charge at specified points on the sample, and isolating and measuring the wide area electrostatic charge quantity from those local electrostatic charges. Yet another method is disclosed for correcting the measurement length value or magnification based on fluctuations found by measuring the amount of electrostatic charge at the specified points under at least two charged particle optical conditions, and then using a charged particle beam to measure fluctuations in measurement dimensions occurring due to fluctuations in the electrostatic charge at the specified locations.

The invention solves charge nonuniformity of a specimen surface resulting from emission variation of a carbon nanotube electron source and individual difference of emission characteristics. During charge control processing, charge of the specimen surface is measured in real time. As means for solving charge nonuniformity resulting from nonuniformity of electron illumination density, electrons illuminating the specimen and the specimen are moved relatively to average electron illumination density. Moreover, an absorption current flowing into the specimen and the numbers of secondary electrons emitted from the specimen and of backscattered electrons are measured as means for monitoring charge of the specimen surface in real time.

Charge control apparatus and measurement apparatus equipped with the charge control apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Hinode, Japan

Hideo Todokoro