Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Hitachi High-tech Corporation

Hitachi, Ltd.

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

Hitachi-science Systems, Ltd.

Michio Hatano

Sukehiro Ito

Takashi Ohshima

Hideo Morishita

Mitsugu Sato

Mitsuhiro Nakamura

Yoshinori Momonoi

Shinichi Tomita

Hideyuki Kazumi

Momoyo Enyama

Junichi Katane

Zhigang Wang

Toshihiko Ogura

Tetsuya Sawahata

Shuhei Yabu

Yuji Takagi

Yoshinori Nakayama

Hiroshi Makino

Hiroki Kawada

Koichi Hamada

Takeshi Kawasaki

Hiroya Ohta

Toshiyuki Yokosuka

Makoto Sakakibara

Tomonori Nakano

Masaaki Komatsu

Yusuke Abe

Daisuke Bizen

Shin Imamura

Yasuhiro Shirasaki

Yuzuru Mizuhara

Chahn Lee

Miki Isawa

Yasuko Aoki

Kazuki Ishizawa

Masaru Matsuzaki

Wataru Kotake

Anoru Suga

Hiroyuki Honda

Nagahide Ishida

Yasuko Watanabe

A sample holder reliably holds a liquid or gel sample, and the yield of observation with a charged particle beam device is improved. A sample holderincludes a first memberthat has a lid memberand a first chipprovided with a first windowwhere a laminated film including a first insulating thin filmis formed, and a second memberthat has a base materialhaving a first bottom seal surfaceand a second bottom seal surface, an electrodedisposed on the base material, and a second chipprovided with a second windowwhere a second insulating thin filmis formed and held on the second bottom seal surface via a second seal materialsuch that the second window faces the electrode, in which a region inside a first seal material is maintained airtightly from a region outside the first seal material by the first member and the second member being combined and the first seal material being crushed between the first bottom seal surface and an upper seal surface of the lid member.

Sample holder, intermembrane distance adjustment mechanism, and charged particle beam device

A risk of breakage of a sample holder can be reduced and a biochemical sample or a liquid sample can be observed easily and with a high observation throughput. A sample holderholding a sample includes: a sample chamber including a first insulating thin filmand a second insulating thin filmthat sandwich and hold the samplein a liquid or gel form and face each other, a vacuum partition wall inside which the sample chamber holding the sample is fixed in a state in which the thin film is exposed to a surrounding atmosphere, and whose internal space is kept at a degree of vacuum at least lower than that of the sample room at the time of observation of the sample, a detection electrodedisposed to face the second insulating thin film in a state in which the sample chamber is fixed to the vacuum partition wall, and a signal detection unitconnected to the detection electrode. Before the surrounding atmosphere of the sample holder is evacuated from an atmospheric pressure to a vacuum, the charged particle beam device receives a detection signal from the signal detection unit via a connector and detects an abnormality of the sample chamber based on the detection signal.

Thin film damage detection function and charged particle beam device

Provided are a charged particle beam device and a detector capable of non-invasively observing a biochemical sample without a staining treatment or an immobilization treatment, with a simple and high observation throughput. An electron optics system, a stage, a sample chamberholding a sample and including a first insulating layerthat is in contact with the sample, and a conductive layerthat is formed on the first insulating layer, signal detection circuitsandconnected to the conductive layer and detecting a current flowing through the conductive layer, and a main control unitfor controlling the electron optics system and the stage, wherein the main control unitirradiates the conductive layer of the sample chamber placed on the stage with an electron beam from the electron optics system and is input with a detection signal from the signal detection circuit.

Charged particle beam device, autofocus processing method of charged particle beam device, and detector

An objective of the present invention is to provide a charged particle beam device capable of estimating a lifetime of a filament of a charged particle beam source with a cheap and simple circuit configuration. The charged particle beam device according to the present invention includes a boosting circuit that boosts a voltage to be supplied to a filament and estimates a remaining duration of the filament using a measured value of a current flowing on a low-voltage side of the boosting circuit (see FIG.).

Charged particle beam device

In order to improve a yield of light generated by a collision between secondary electrons and gas molecules, the invention provides a charged particle beam device including: a charged particle beam source configured to irradiate a sample with a charged particle beam; a sample chamber configured to hold the sample and a gas molecule; a positive electrode configured to form an electric field that accelerates a secondary electron emitted from the sample; a photodetector configured to detect light generated by a collision between the accelerated secondary electron and the gas molecule; and a light condensing unit disposed between the sample and the photodetector, having a light emitting space in which the light is generated, and configured to condense the light generated in the light emitting space on a photodetector side.

An image forming apparatus includes an observation image input section in which a plurality of observation images is input, an emphasis information input section that inputs information to be emphasized, a storage section that defines a plurality of conversion functions that converts the plurality of observation images into a converted image on the basis of a function for conversion and takes, as a parameter, a gradation value of each pixel in the plurality of observation images and a plurality of emphasis functions that takes, as a parameter, a gradation value of each pixel in the conversion functions, an image calculation section that calculates an image in which information to be emphasized is emphasized on the basis of the plurality of input observation images, the input information of the information to be emphasized, the conversion functions, and the emphasis functions, and an emphasized image output section that outputs the emphasized image.

Image forming apparatus

Provided is a measurement device including: an irradiation optical system which emits a primary charged quantum beam to a sample for scanning; a detector which detects secondary charged particles generated from the sample; and a signal processing unit which processes an output signal from the secondary charged particle detector which has detected the secondary charged particles, in which the signal processing unit includes a measurement unit which measures widths of a first pattern group calibrated with a well-known first dimension and a second pattern group calibrated with a well-known second dimension, and an operation unit which defines a relationship between the well-known dimensions of the first and second pattern groups and length measurement values of the first and second pattern groups as a function. Accordingly, it is possible to control device performance with high accuracy, by controlling a device state so that the measured value described above is within an acceptable range by comparing to a predetermined value provided in advance.

Measurement device, calibration method of measurement device, and calibration member

To provide a scanning electron microscope having an electron spectroscopy system to attain high spatial resolution and a high secondary electron detection rate under the condition that energy of primary electrons is low, the scanning electron microscope includes: an objective lensprimary electron acceleration meansthat accelerates primary electronsprimary electron deceleration meansthat decelerates the primary electrons and irradiates them to a samplea secondary electron deflectorthat deflects secondary electronsfrom the sample to the outside of an optical axis of the primary electrons; a spectroscopethat disperses secondary electrons; and a controller that controls application voltage to the objective lens, the primary electron acceleration means and the primary electron deceleration means so as to converge the secondary electrons to an entrance of the spectroscope.

Scanning electron microscope and electron trajectory adjustment method therefor

There is provided a technique to correctly select and measure a pattern to be measured even when contours of the pattern are close to each other in a sample including a plurality of patterns on a substantially same plane. A pattern measuring apparatus that scans a sample with charged particles, forms a detected image by detecting secondary charged particles or backscattered charged particles generated from the sample, and measures a pattern imaged on the detected image includes: an image acquiring section acquiring a plurality of detected images taken at a substantially same location on the sample under different imaging conditions; a contour extracting section extracting a plurality of pattern contours from the plurality of detected images; a contour reconstructing section reconstructing a contour to be measured by combining the plurality of pattern contours; and a contour measuring section making a measurement using the reconstructed contour to be measured.

Pattern measuring apparatus, pattern measuring method, and computer-readable recording medium on which a pattern measuring program is recorded

An object of the invention is to provide a scanning electron microscope which forms an electric field to lift up, highly efficiently, electrons discharged from a hole bottom or the like even if a sample surface is an electrically conductive material. To achieve the above object, according to the invention, a scanning electron microscope including a deflector which deflects a scanning position of an electron beam, and a sample stage for loading a sample thereon, is proposed. The scanning electron microscope includes a control device which controls the deflector or the sample stage in such a way that before scanning a beam on a measurement target pattern, a lower layer pattern situated in a lower layer of the measurement target pattern undergoes beam irradiation on another pattern situated in the lower layer.

Scanning electron microscope

In observation of a sample having a structure in its depth direction, a charged particle beam apparatus that can form an SEM image reflecting a sample shape at a desired depth by a single image acquisition while avoiding enlargement of the apparatus is provided. The apparatus has: an irradiation optical system for irradiating and scanning a charged particle beam generated from a charged particle source on the sample; a detection optical system having a detector that detects charged particles generated from the sample by the irradiation of the charged particle beam, and converts them into an electric signal at a predetermined sampling period; and an image processing unit for forming an image based on the electric signal from the detector, in which the image processing unit detects a peak of wave height values for each pixel from the electric signal at each sampling time, and forms the image based on the peak of the detected wave height values.

Charged particle beam apparatus and image forming method

The present invention provides an electron beam apparatus comprising a means for visualizing an axial displacement of a retarding electric field, and a means for adjusting axial displacement. The axial displacement visualizing means includes a reflective plate (), and an optical system () for converging a secondary electron beam () on the reflective plate (), and the axial displacement adjusting means includes an incline rotation mechanism () for a sample stage (). With this configuration, in electron beam apparatuses such as SEM and the like, such problems as visual field displacement caused by displacement of the axial symmetry of the electric field between an objective lens () and a sample () and inability to measure secondary electrons and reflected electrons that provide desired information can be eliminated.

Electron beam apparatus for visualizing a displacement of an electric field

Disclosed is a charged particle radiation device having a charged particle source which generates a charged particle as a probe, a charged particle optical system, a sample stage, a vacuum discharge system, an aperture which restricts a probe, a conductive film, and a charged particle detector, wherein the conductive film is provided at a position excluding the optical axis of the optical system between the sample stage and the aperture; and the distance between the sensing surface of the surface of the charged particle detector and the sample stage is larger than the distance between the sample stage and the conductive film, so that the surface of the conductive film and the sensing surface of the detector are inclined.

Charged particle radiation device with bandpass detection

To provide a low acceleration scanning electron microscope that can discriminate and detect reflected electrons and secondary electrons even with a low probe current, this scanning electron microscope is provided with an electron gun (), an aperture (), a sample table (), an electron optical system (-) for making an electron beam () converge on a sample (), a deflection means (), a secondary electron detector (), a reflected electron detector (), and a cylindrical electron transport means () in a position between the electron gun () and sample (). The reflected electron detector () is provided within the electron transport means () and on a side further away from the electron gun () than the secondary electron detector () and the deflection means (). The reception surface (-) of the reflected electron detector () is electrically wired so as to have the same potential as the electron transport means ().

In order to provide a charged particle beam apparatus that can detect charged particle beam signals in discrimination into a plurality of energy bands, and obtain high-resolution images for each of the energy bands using the signals, the charged particle beam apparatus has a charged particle source (-); an aperture () that limits the diameter of the charged particle beam (); optics () for the charged particle beam; a specimen holder (); a charged particle detector () that detects secondary charged particles and reflected charged particles from a specimen; and signal calculation unit that processes the output signal from the charged particle detector. The charged particle detector () is provided with a first small detector () having a first detection sensitivity and a second small detector () having a second detection sensitivity, and makes the detection solid angle viewed from a position on the specimen, to which the charged particle beam () is to be radiated, to be the same for the first small detector () and the second small detector ().

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Michio Hatano