Agency of Industrial Science and Technology

Ministry of International Trade & Industry

Shigeo Okayama

Mutsuo Ogura

Hiroshi Hiroshima

Hisazo Kawakatsu

Masanori Komuro

A charged beam apparatus comprising a vacuum chamber having a moving mechanism inside and a sample chamber, the sample chamber being used placed in an ultra-high vacuum atmosphere or a gas atmosphere, wherein a flat surface is formed on that surface of the moving mechanism which faces the sample chamber, and a flange having a flat open surface is mounted between the vacuum chamber and the sample chamber such that the open surface is opposed to the flat surface with a tiny gap being formed between the open surface and the flat surface for permitting vacuum venting without imposing any restrictions on the moving mechanism, whereby the apparatus operates without restricting the action of the moving mechanism.

Charged beam apparatus

A lens for a charged particle beam comprises first, second, third and fourth quadrupoles, a first aperture electrode placed in front of the first quadrupole, a second aperture electrode placed between the first quadrupole and the second quadrupole, a third aperture electrode placed between the second quadrupole and the third quadrupole, a fourth aperture electrode placed between the third quadrupole and the fourth quadrupole, a fifth aperture electrode placed behind the fourth quadrupole, means for exciting the quadrupoles to cause them to converge the charged beam to a line near the third aperture electrode, and means for applying voltage to excite the first to fifth aperture electrodes and cause them to produce an octupole lens action for correcting aperture aberration.

Lens for charged particle beam

Disclosed is a pattern forming apparatus using a quadrupole lens system to control the cross section of a beam of electrons or ions to be projected onto a plate-like object. A variety of rectangular beams can be formed by electrically controlling the quadrupole lens system, and thus a desired pattern can be produced in the form of combination of rectangle and line pattern elements when the plate-like object is exposed to the beam of electric charged particles. The pattern forming apparatus according to this invention is useful particularly in fabricating integrated circuits, semiconductor devices and other precision devices.

Growing community of inventors

Tsukuba, Japan

Shigeo Okayama