Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Kazunari Asao

Akira Ikegami

Hideo Todokoro

Takahiro Sato

Yoichi Ose

Makoto Ezumi

Ritsuo Fukaya

Tatsuaki Ishijima

Minoru Yamazaki

Manabu Yano

Hideyuki Kazumi

Makoto Suzuki

Takeshi Mizuno

Yuki Ojima

Muneyuki Fukuda

Yuko Sasaki

Noritsugu Takahashi

Tomoyasu Shojo

Wataru Mori

Zhigang Wang

Ryota Watanabe

Hirohiko Kitsuki

Kazuyuki Hirao

Hideki Itai

Yuki Tomizawa

There are provided: a method for image adjustment using a charged particle beam device, and a charged particle beam system, capable of appropriately adjusting a contrast and brightness as well as a focus for a measurement region present in a deep portion of a sample even when a depth of the measurement region is unknown. A method for image adjustment performed by a computer system controlling a charged particle beam device includes: by the computer system, specifying a measurement region from a captured image of a sample; performing centering processing based on the specified measurement region; extracting the measurement region in a field of view that has undergone the centering processing or the image that has undergone the centering processing; adjusting a contrast and brightness for the extracted measurement region; and adjusting a focus for the measurement region in which the contrast and brightness have been adjusted.

Method for image adjustment and charged particle beam system

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a charged particle beam device which adjusts brightness and contrast or adjusts focus and the like appropriately in a short time even if there are few detected signals. Proposed as an aspect for achieving this purpose is a charged particle beam device provided with: a detector for detecting charged particles obtained on the basis of irradiation of a specimen with a charged particle beam emitted from a charged particle source; and a control unit for processing a signal obtained on the basis of the output of the detector, wherein the control unit performs statistical processing on gray level values in a predetermined region of an image generated on the basis of the output of the detector, and executes signal processing for correcting a difference between a statistical value obtained by the statistical processing and reference data relating to the gray level values of the image.

Charged particle beam device

In order to solve the problem that the resolution of a back-scattered electron image without a contrast difference between materials with close atomic numbers is low, an image processing apparatus that performs an image process on a back-scattered electron image as an input image includes: a material peak detection unit that determines a peak luminance value with a peak of a frequency of a luminance histogram based on a luminance value obtained for each measurement position by using the input image as an input and information about material-dependent back-scattered electron generation efficiency, and that outputs the peak luminance value for each material; and an image information adjustment unit that emphasizes a material-dependent contrast on the basis of the input image and the peak luminance value for each material.

Image processing apparatus, image processing method

A charged-particle-beam device is characterized in having a control value for an aligner coil () being determined by: a coil current and an electrode applied-voltage at a control value for objectives (), which is an electromagnetic-field superposition lens; a control value for image-shift coils (); and the acceleration voltage of the charged-particle-beam. By doing this, it has become possible to avoid image disturbances that occur on images to be displayed at boundaries between charged areas and non-charged areas, and provide a charged-particle-beam device that obtains clear images without any unevenness in brightness.

Charged-particle microscope

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

There is proposed a charged particle beam apparatus including: a plurality of noise removal filters that remove noise of an electrical signal; a measurement unit that measures the contrast-to-noise ratio after applying one of the noise removal filters; and a determination unit that determines a magnitude relationship between the contrast-to-noise ratio measured by the measurement unit and a threshold value set in advance.

Charged particle beam apparatus

An object of the present invention is to provide a scanning electron microscope suitable for monitoring apparatus conditions of the microscope itself, irrespective of the presence of charge-up, specimen inclination, and the like. In order to achieve the object, proposed is a scanning electron microscope including a function to monitor the apparatus conditions on the basis of information obtained with an electron beam reflected before reaching a specimen. Specifically, for example, while applying a negative voltage to the specimen to reflect the electron beam before the electron beam reaches the specimen, and simultaneously supplying a predetermined signal to a deflector for alignment, the scanning electron microscope monitors changes of the detected positions of the reflected electrons of the electron beam. If the above-mentioned predetermined signal is under the condition where an alignment is properly performed, the changes of the detected positions of the electrons reflect deviation of an axis.

Scanning electron microscope

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.

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Hitachinaka, Japan

Kazunari Asao