Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Hitachi Vlsi Engineering Corp.

Masanari Koguchi

Ruriko Tsuneta

Hiroshi Kakibayashi

Tatsuo Makishima

Kuniyasu Nakamura

Kazutaka Tsuji

Shigeto Isakozawa

Mikio Ichihashi

Yoshihiro Anan

Katsuhiro Kuroda

Yasuhiro Mitsui

Takahito Hashimoto

Hideo Todokoro

Hiroyuki Kobayashi

Kensuke Sekihara

Isao Nagaoki

Hiromi Inada

Keiichi Kanehori

Jun Motoike

Takao Matsumoto

Takeshi Nakayama

Mitsugu Sato

Muneyuki Fukuda

Hiroyuki Shinada

Kaoru Umemura

Mari Nozoe

Hidetoshi Matsumoto

Hiroyuki Tanaka

Kensuke Ogawa

Toshio Katsuyama

Yoshifumi Taniguchi

Kenji Hiruma

Kenji Sameshima

Tetsuya Ooshima

Masamitsu Yazawa

Gerard P Morgan

Nobutaka Futigami

Hideo Tadokoro

Shiano Ono

This substitution site measuring equipment using an electron beam analyzes, with high precision, the structure of a substitution site in a micrometer- to nanometer-order region, by reducing or vanishing the X-ray intensity of diffraction X-rays generated in a specimen. The substitution site measuring equipment measures a substitution site in a crystal by detecting, by means of an X-ray detector, X-rays generated from a specimen upon irradiation of the specimen with an electron beam. The substitution site measuring equipment is provided with: an input unit to which a crystal structure of a specimen, energy or wavelengths of X-rays to be detected, a tilt angle of the specimen, and positional information about the specimen and the X-ray detector are inputted; a diffraction X-ray incidence calculating means for calculating incidence of diffraction X-rays on the X-ray detector on the basis of parameters inputted to the input unit; a measurement condition setting means for setting a measurement condition according to the incidence of diffraction X-rays on the X-ray detector calculated by the diffraction X-ray incidence calculating means such that the diffraction X-rays are not incident on the X-ray detector; and an electron beam inclination/X-ray detection control unit that detects the X-rays in synchronization with the inclination of an electron beam.

Substitution site measuring equipment and substitution site measuring method

Areas having different isotopic ratios are artificially introduced into a metal material before sintering, a heat treatment, or grain boundary diffusion, and atom probe analysis results before and after sintering, a heat treatment, or grain boundary diffusion are compared to evaluate a change in isotopic distribution over time.

Method for evaluating structural change during production process, and analysis program

To provide a charged particle beam analyzer enabling an efficient and high-sensitivity analysis of a microscopic light element contained in a heavy metal sample, the charged particle beam analyzer equipped with a WDX spectrometer includes a storage unithaving stored therein a correlation database between average atomic numbers and WDX background intensity values obtained with use of a plurality of standard samples and a WDX background processing meansincluding a meansfor calculating an average atomic number for a sampleand a means for eliminating a WDX background intensity value derived from the average atomic number for the sampleand the correlation database from a WDX spectrum for the sample

Charged-particle-beam analysis device and analysis method

To analyze an element to be evaluated with high sensitivity and high accuracy in a short period of time, in an electron beam analyzer including a wavelength dispersive X-ray analyzer in an electron microscope. The electron beam analyzer has one diffraction grating in which a plurality of patterns having maximum X-ray reflectance with respect to the respective X-rays are formed. It simultaneously detects an X-ray as an energy reference and an X-ray spectrum to be evaluated. The positional displacement of X-ray energy due to the installation/replacement of the diffraction grating is corrected using the X-ray spectrum as the energy reference, thereby enabling to perform an analysis with high sensitivity and high accuracy in a short period of time.

Spectroscopic element and charged particle beam device using the same

In a charged particle beam analyzer irradiating a charged particle beam to a sample in a vacuum container and detecting an X-ray generated from the sample to analyze the sample, two or more X-ray lenses configured in different manners are provided in the vacuum container. This no longer requires air opening in the vacuum container following X-ray lens replacement and also no longer requires vacuuming, making it possible to perform analysis with high efficiency and high sensitivity.

Charged particle beam analyzer and analysis method

In a specimen analyzing apparatus such as a transmission electron microscope for analyzing the structure, composition and electron state of an observing specimen in operation by applying external voltage to the specimen to be observed, a specimen support (mesh) including a mesh electrode connectable to external voltage applying portions of the specimen and a specimen holder including a specimen holder electrode connectable to the mesh electrode and current inlet terminals as well are provided. Voltage is applied externally of the specimen analyzing apparatus to the external voltage applying portions of the specimen through the medium of the specimen holder electrode and mesh electrode.

Multi-part specimen holder with conductive patterns

An electric charged particle beam microscope measures a geometric distortion at an arbitrary magnification with high precision, and corrects the geometric distortion. A geometric distortion at a first magnification is measured as an absolute distortion based on a standard specimen having a cyclic structure. A microscopic structure specimen is photographed at a geometric distortion measured first magnification and at a geometric distortion unmeasured second magnification. The image at the first magnification is equally transformed to the second magnification to generate a scaled image. The geometric distortion at the second magnification is measured as a relative distortion based on the scaled image. The absolute distortion at the second magnification is obtained on the basis of the absolute distortion at the first magnification and the relative distortion at the second magnification. Subsequently, the second magnification is replaced with the first magnification, and the relative distortion measurement is repeated.

Electric charged particle beam microscopy and electric charged particle beam microscope

Below 50-nm-diameter extremely narrow electrically-conductive fiber is used instead of the electron beam biprism used in the conventional interference electron microscope method. A phenomenon is utilized where a focus-shifted shadow of this fiber is shifted from a straight line by a distance which is proportional to a differentiation of phase change amount of an electron beam due to a sample with respect to a direction perpendicular to the fiber. The phase change amount is quantified by calibrating this shift amount through its comparison with a shift amount caused by another sample in terms of which the corresponding phase change amount has been quantitatively evaluated in advance. The differentiation amount of the quantified phase change in the electron beam due to the sample is visualized, or eventually, is integrated thereby being transformed into absolute phase change amount to be visualized.

Magnetic electron microscope

The conventional detection technique has the following problems in detecting interference fringes: (1) Setting and adjustment are complex and difficult to conduct; (2) A phase image and an amplitude image cannot be displayed simultaneously; and (3) Detection efficiency of electron beams is low. The invention provides a scanning interference electron microscope which is improved in detection efficiency of electron beam interference fringes, and enables the user to observe electric and magnetic information easily in a micro domain of a specimen as a scan image of a high S/N ratio under optimum conditions.

Scanning interference electron microscope

Magnification errors are reduced in the required range of magnification in electric charged particle beam application apparatuses and critical dimension measurement instruments. To achieve this, a first image, whose magnification for the specimen is actually measured, is recorded, a second image, whose magnification for the specimen is unknown, is recorded, and the magnification of the second image for the first image is analyzed by using image analysis. Thereby, the magnification of the second image for the specimen is actually measured. Then, magnification is actually measured in the whole range of magnification by repeating the magnification analysis described above by taking the second image as the first image. Actually measuring the magnification of images for the specimen in the whole range of magnification and calibrating the same permits a reduction of magnification errors by a digit.

Electric charged particle beam microscopy, electric charged particle beam microscope, critical dimension measurement and critical dimension measurement system

A scanning transmission electron microscope for scanning a primary electron beam on a sample, detecting a transmitted electron from the sample by a detector, and forming an image of the transmitted electron. The scanning transmission electron microscope includes an electron-optics system which enables switching back the transmitted electron beam to the optical axis by a predetermined quantity, and a determining unit for determining the quantity based on a displacement of the transmitted electron with respect to the detector caused by the scanning of the primary electron beam.

Scanning transmission electron microscope and scanning transmission electron microscopy

A scanning transmission electron microscope which enhances correction accuracy of a de-scanning coil for canceling a transmitted-electron-beam position change on an electron detector. Here, this transmitted-electron-beam position change appears in accompaniment with a primary-electron-beam position change on a specimen caused by a scanning coil. First, control over the scanning coil is digitized. Moreover, while being synchronized with a digital control signal resulting from this digitization, values in a de-scanning table registered in a FM() are outputted to the de-scanning coil. Here, the de-scanning table is created as follows: Diffraction images before and after activating the scanning coil and the de-scanning coil are photographed using a camera. Then, based on a result acquired by analyzing a resultant displacement quantity of the diffraction images by the image processing, the de-scanning table is created.

The purpose of the present invention is to inspect the position, number, and size of fine defects in a variety of solid state materials, including a semiconductor device and metallic materials, with a high spatial resolution of nanometer order. The positron irradiation function is installed in the converged electron beam apparatus. The defect location information is obtained from the converged electron beam location information, and the number and size of defects are obtained from the detected information of &#x3b3;-rays created by pair annihilation of electrons and positrons, and this two-dimensional distribution information is displayed in the monitor. Information on ultra-fine defects in a crystal can be provided with high-speed and high-resolution, and nondestructively in the case of a semiconductor wafer.

Defect inspection instrument and positron beam apparatus

The present invention provides an analysis of displacement by calculating the phase variance image P' (k, l) between Fourier transformed images of paired images S(n, m) and S(n, m) to determine the center of gravity of &#x3b4; peak appearing on the invert Fourier transform image of the images. The present invention provides numerous advantages such as a precision of displacement analysis of a fraction of pixel to thereby allow to improve the precision of focal analysis, or reduced number of pixels required to achieve the same precision, evaluation of reliability of the analysis by using the &#x3b4; peak intensity, influence of varying background reduced by using a phase variance component. The improved performance by the present invention allows any operator skilled or not to achieve a best focusing.

Electron microscope

By use of charged particle beam images picked up in different conditions, a positional displacement caused by parallax is analyzed, and an optics of an apparatus for charged particle beam microscopy is corrected automatically. An analysis method using phase difference of Fourier transform images and having analytic accuracy lower than that for one pixel is adopted for the displacement analysis. In addition, a degree of coincidence between images calculated in this analysis method is used as a criterion for evaluating the reliability of an analysis result. Since the analysis method based on parallax is low in specimen dependency, the operation range is expanded. In addition, by adopting a high-accuracy displacement analysis method, the apparatus correction accuracy is improved by one digit. A malfunction preventing flow is added using the degree of coincidence as a judgement criterion. Thus, the apparatus can deal with unmanned operation. In addition, the degree of coincidence can be used as a monitor of inspection states or a record of states in an inspection apparatus.

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Kunitachi, Japan

Masanari Koguchi