CHARGED PARTICLE BEAM COLUMN AND METHOD FOR DIRECTING A CHARGED PARTICLE BEAM

摘要

A method and charged particle beam column are presented for directing a primary charged particle beam onto a sample. The primary charged particle beam, propagating along an initial axis (OA') of beam propagation towards a focusing assembly, passes through a beam shaper (22), that affects the cross section of the primary charged particle beam to compensate for aberrations of focusing caused by astigmatism effect of a focusing field produced by an objective lens arrangement of the focusing asembly (26), and then passes through a beam axis alignment system (24), that aligns the axis of the primary charged particle beam with respect to the optical axis of the objective lens arrangement.