Asml Netherlands B.v.

Ruochong Fei

Wei Fang

Lingling Pu

Yu Liu

Zhonghua Dong

Ying Luo

Wentian Zhou

Liangjiang Yu

Bohang Zhu

Bo Wang

Long Di

Xuehui Yin

Nianpei Deng

Systems and methods for irradiating a sample with a charged-particle beam are disclosed. The charged-particle beam system may comprise a stage configured to hold a sample and is movable in at least one of X-Y-Z axes. The charged-particle beam system may further comprise a position sensing system to determine a lateral and vertical displacement of the stage, and a beam deflection controller configured to apply a first signal to deflect a primary charged-particle beam incident on the sample to at least partly compensate for the lateral displacement, and to apply a second signal to adjust a focus of the deflected charged-particle beam incident on the sample to at least partly compensate for the vertical displacement of the stage. The first and second signals may comprise an electrical signal having a high bandwidth in a range of 10 kHz to 50 kHz, and 50 kHz to 200 kHz, respectively.

Systems and methods for focusing charged—particle beams

An improved method and apparatus for enhancing an inspection image in a charged-particle beam inspection system. An improved method for enhancing an inspection image comprises acquiring a first image and a second image of multiple stacked layers of a sample that are taken with a first focal point and a second focal point, respectively, associating a first segment of the first image with a first layer among the multiple stacked layers and associating a second segment of the second image with a second layer among the multiple stacked layers, updating the first segment based on a first reference image corresponding to the first layer and updating the second segment based on a second reference image corresponding to the second layer, and combining the updated first segment and the updated second segment to generate a combined image including the first layer and the second layer.

Image enhancement for multi-layered structure in charged-particle beam inspection

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ruochong Fei